A Thought Experiment Question for Christians
Heres a thought experiment for Christians. Suppose you somehow became convinced that Christianity is false. Suppose you came to believe that Jesus was just a man. How would you proceed? What would you do? Make a choice and explain why.
1. This is ridiculous. Christianity IS true and thats all there is to it. Im not doing this silly thought experiment. Count me out. (No further explanation needed.)
2. I would become an atheist.
3. I would search for a God that isnt false.
4. None of the above. I would do something else.
1. This is ridiculous. Christianity IS true and thats all there is to it. Im not doing this silly thought experiment. Count me out. (No further explanation needed.)
2. I would become an atheist.
3. I would search for a God that isnt false.
4. None of the above. I would do something else.
Comments (271)
I think a better way to phrase that is "How would you proceed?".
Not a Christian so I won't answer.
I'm not a Christian, except by cultural heritage. But moving on...
Quoting Art48
These are two very different questions. but let me ask you, are you "just a man"?
I assume that Jesus was just a man, but most men are not still thought about two millennia later so that "just" is having to work rather hard and looks a bit suspect. Hitler too was 'just a man'.
Nazism is false; Christianity is not. Do you want to even think about or discuss what it means to love your enemies or die for another's sins? And can such things be "false"?
Yes, I am being restrictive. Words have meaning.
But as I suspected this thread won't get a few real replies if at all. There aren't really any active outspoken Christians here.
Unitarian Christians?
I'm inclined to leave arguing about who is truly a Christian, to those who want to call themselves Christians. It's not as if there exists some essence of True Christian.
There is no essence of redness, yet we are not calling yellow "red", even if it is closer to red than blue is.
I'm somewhat of a Christian but I'll still answer.
I'd stick to classical theism in the Abrahamic tradition. That would leave me with either Judaism or Islam. I suspect many Christians become Muslims under this thought experiment. At least in Islam he is a prophet.
wait, but Mormons believe both of those things (can't say I know about the Kardashians though).
From the horses mouth:
https://ph.churchofjesuschrist.org/do-mormons-believe-in-jesus-christ#:~:text=Mormons%20believe%20that%20Jesus%20Christ%20died%20on%20the%20cross%20and,sacrifice%2C%20a%20lamb%20without%20blemish.
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/what-mormons-believe-about-jesus-christ
I guess that is true.
Quoting flannel jesus
I said believing Jesus (not you) was not divine makes you not a Christian. Also that Mormons aren't Christian.
I don't know why exactly they call themselves Christian, but I have a few things in mind.
It also feels vulgar to include Mormonism into Christianity. The latter has centuries of sophisticated and curated thought building its tradition, the former is dumb as soon as you bat an eye on it.
But to their credit, the temples do look amazing, much better than what current western architecture has been putting out (mostly geometric abortions made of stone).
Everything you said in this most recent post seems very wishy washy. "They aren't christian because I don't feel like it". That's how it comes across.
I am not god to be flawless. But besides that, if the two were connected, I would put an em dash between the two, not a period, to show that the two I brought up are supposed to be examples of what is said before. Since the two sentences are thematically connected, I left them in the same paragraph.
Quoting flannel jesus
Religion isn't science, so that is not a bad thing. It doesn't seem like you have looked a lot into Mormonism. If you do, you will see how they are not Christian any more than Muslims are.
I know more about Mormonism than most Mormons do.
That's not how most people use punctuation - they can string together related thoughts within a paragraph, separated by periods; that's normal.
Raised & educated by strict Roman Catholics, I'd reach this conclusion by senior year in my Jesuit high school (though my apostasy had begun two years earlier).
In the late 1970s I'd critically compared his purported teachings to that of others like Socrates, Epicurus, Buddha, Laozi, Kongzi ... who were also "just men" and had found Yeshua ben Yosef far less compelling.
I'd become a freethinker and naturalist / anti-supernaturalist; then had for years studied comparative religion and religious histories on my own; all the while growing more secular, even irreligious, from apostate to weak athiest to strong atheist by the mid 1990s to antitheist (with strong speculative affinities for pandeism) about two decades ago.
Well, as sketched above, my path had been from 4 through 3 to 2. :halo:
I don't see how that relates to what you are replying :-P
Quoting flannel jesus
Counterpoint:
Considering that sixth grade over there is equivalent to fifth or fourth grade in most countries, the situation is even worse than it looks.
Matter of fact, my usage of punctuation is refined and aims for clarity. I would even say my usage is the correct usage of punctuation.
Yes, that is what I did. Mormonism not being Christian is related to things that make one not Christian. The two are separated by a period. But Mormonism not being Christian is not an example of the principle of not believing in the divinity of Jesus making one not Christian (because they believe that Jesus was divine), in that case I would use em-dash.
I know an awful lot about mormonism, you're being silly.
Quoting Lionino
If you don't expect people to think that you mean Mormons aren't Christian for the reason you stated, you are failing at the goal you're aiming for. By a large margin.
Everybody knows an awful lot about any given topic they are talking about...
Quoting flannel jesus
As I said, I am not God, not every text I produce is perfectly unambiguous; it is flattering however that hold me in such regard.
do you have any intention to stop being silly?
1 you complaining about your misinterpretation of my post.
2 saying you know a lot about Mormonism.
You are being silly. You aren't giving any coherent arguments about why mormonism isn't christian. You're just saying a bunch of other random silly stuff.
And just stating "I know a lot about Mormonism" while being clueless as to why someone would say Mormonism isn't Christian, something that is agreed by every Christian denomination, helps you prove me wrong?
You haven't made an argument that they're not christian. Your failure to make an argument proves you wrong, not what i know.
If you had a coherent argument to make, you'd have made it by now. Instead you blather on with silliness. You're not correct.
Someone not making an argument makes them wrong? That's just dumb.
Anyway, Mormons aren't Christian, the only ones who think so are Mormons. Black Israelites are not Hebrews, the only ones who think so are Black Israelites.
I hope you don't expect people on a philosophy forum to just accept your word for it without coherent arguments. There's a higher criteria for acceptance than that here (hopefully).
Anyway, 15 posts of yours and it is just complaining + complaining. If you provide some content in the next one, I will reply. Otherwise, no.
You're incorrect.
From a self-identification and core belief standpoint, Mormons are Christians because they center their faith on Jesus Christ and His teachings. However, differences in doctrine, additional scriptures, and unique beliefs have led some other Christian denominations to question or reject Mormonism as part of traditional Christianity. The debate largely hinges on theological differences and the definition of what it means to be "Christian."
The Book of Mormon repeatedly emphasizes that Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of the world. It teaches that through His Atonement, all people can be forgiven of their sins if they repent and follow Him. One of the most well-known verses, 2 Nephi 25:26, states, "And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins."[/quote]
Alternatively, we could go with Nietzsche's observation to further appease everyone: "There was only one Christian and he died on the cross."
True. What I've noticed though is that, if you seek a definition of Christianity from most of these Churches, they'll give a very basic broad intuitive understanding of it, like "someone who believes in Christ and seeks salvation through asking for forgiveness and grace through Christ", maybe throwing in a bit about Baptism. And by the standards of almost all of these basic definitions, Mormons most definitely fit the bill as "Christian".
But then when you ask them "are Mormons christian?" despite the obvious answer being Yes because they fit the criteria laid out, they'll add in some arbirary (or at least I consider it arbitrary) criteria that seems almost specifically chosen just to exclude Mormons, which is funny.
Quoting Nils Loc
Solid quote.
But no true Scotsman would reveal what lies beneath his kilt,
Looking over the vast range of what "Christianity" has come to mean for different persons over centuries of life, the common insistence amongst the different groups that only one way is correct has become more 'universal' than any particular set of creeds, liturgy, or view of the world reflected in each iteration.
This amounts to claiming that Christianity coincides with exactly one of the many historical Christologies, i.e. the Trinitarian-Chalcedonian one.
It amounts to claiming that many branches of Oriental Orthodox Churches are not Christian. This view is in violation of the doctrine of pretty much every Christian church in existence.
I ended up at 3. as well.
You don't really need to go searching. God is already there is Scripture. The Old Testament is written before Jesus walks the Earth.
Yes, like the plot device of "Manwë" in The Silmarillion (or "Sauron" in LotR). :smirk:
If you believe in Spinoza's God isn't everything God to you? So then Jesus is God. As are we.
Quoting flannel jesus
It is true that only Mormons think Mormons are Christian, and this is a strong argument given that Mormons are a significant minority.*
In Christianity membership is usually defined by baptism, and therefore one can determine whether someone is seen to be a Christian by considering whether they require baptism upon converting. The majority of Christians are made up of Catholics and Orthodox, and neither group recognizes Mormon baptism as valid or Christian. Protestantism consists of many different groups, but they all seem to agree that Mormons are not Christians.
* Mormons would account for only 0.61% of Christians as of 2024, according to Wikipedia and a main source of the Wikipedia article.
That is decidedly untrue. All I have to do is find one non-mormon who thinks mormonism is a christian religion, and it's untrue. That's a pretty easy bar to pass.
If that's the litmus test you would apply then it's clear you're not taking the question seriously in the first place.
That is an odd line. The Nicene Creed affirms exactly what Lionino says, namely that Jesus is the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father. The Apostles' Creed is not much different. It's hard to see how any of this avoids being "supernatural."
...Or are you under the impression that belief and affirmation are altogether distinct?
I don't mean your strawman, but that goes without saying.
I think that is an odd distinction in the first place, but it is certainly anachronistic to use "facts" in such a manner, contrasting it with the "beliefs" of 4th-century Christians. Unless I am mistaken, you are the first one in the thread to make use of the term "facts" in this manner.
Edit: If you are saying that Christians never affirmed that Jesus is God, they only believed it, I would say that this is both anachronistic and incorrect. A creedal profession involves such affirmations, and therefore an argument from creeds does not support this interpretation.
We can make it very practical:
Now the only Church leader who will say, "Oh okay, I agree that you are already Christian and require no baptism or initiation before joining our community," would be a Mormon leader. So you can go on claiming that Mormons are Christians, so long as it is admitted that 99% of Christians disagree with you.
I can't say I have spent a lot of time in Unitarian Universalist Churches, but I wouldn't be surprised if a large percentage of UU leaders would be untroubled by such a claim by a Mormon. It seems more a matter of a church leader's ability to see past a tribalistic mindset, to me.
Er, but the councils that produced the creeds were painstakingly concerned with predicates and predication, as was the Emperor himself. None of the history surrounding the conflicts of religion around the time of Constantine would make any sense at all on your view. For example, the martyrs who died for their beliefs were not dying for "beliefs you don't have to worry too much about."
Quoting tim wood
"Fact" as you are using it dates from about the 17th century. The belief-fact distinction is extremely anachronistic when applied to the 4th century. Neither does the Greek pistis indicate something that is not being affirmed.
Egads. Mormons would constitute 0.61% of Christians and UU would constitute 1% of Mormons. You are talking about tiny outliers here. And the simple reason why neither group is generally considered Christian is because they are not Trinitarians.
I made a claim about 99% of Christians and in response you effectively said, "Well, if UU can be called Christian then .006% of Christians might call Mormons Christian." This literally does not affect my claim or argument whatsoever.
(This thread explains why I rarely engage religious topics on TPF.)
Yes as far as I can tell, officially the majority of Christian churches, maybe all non Mormon Christian churches, consider Mormons non Christian or at the very least reject Mormon baptism. You are correct about that. Not the thing you said originally, but this new thing you're now saying, yes.
It's interesting that Mormons also don't accept the baptism of other Christian churches.
Anyway, I don't think this is the best metric for determining who we ought to consider Christians. I mean, 90% of Muslims are sunni, and a huge portion of them would say Sunni is the only real Islam, the other 10% aren't real Muslims. I wouldn't take that seriously from a sunni, and I don't personally take the comparable thing going on here from other Christians all that seriously. I mean, maybe if you're a Christian it makes sense for you to take that seriously, but I'm not beholden to any particular churches dogma and thus I'm not obliged to apply some arbitrary rule to decide Mormons, who are Christian by any obvious metric other than popularity among other Christians, are somehow not Christian.
We don't need to talk about your original claim anymore though.
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the presence of UU churches in the US is strongly correlated with the location of academic institutions.
This is literally on par with saying that 99% of scientific professionals hold that such-and-such is pseudoscience, but, "I'm not obliged to apply some arbitrary rule to decide that such-and-such, which is science by any obvious metric other than popularity among scientists, is somehow not scientific."
This is very bad reasoning. It's not a minor argument to argue on the basis of what the vast, vast majority of experts in some field believe. The criteria and studies that go into such consensuses are anything but arbitrary or dismissible.
It's not at all like science, because this is about what words mean, not about empirical observations. No empirical observations can tell you what the word "Christian" means. It's definitional.
Ask the majority of Christians, "how can I know if something is a Christian?" They'll tell you one, two, or three criteria, if someone fits those criteria they're a Christian. Almost without fail, Mormons pass any intuitive criteria for being a Christian.
Did you know many protestants say Catholics aren't Christian?
These fuckers really love gate keeping the word.
I don't think this is right at all. It is not a coincidence or a conspiracy that Christians do not find Mormons to be Christian. The way that Mormons conceive of God, Christ, the afterlife, and original sin all differ drastically from historical Christianity. And that doesn't even touch the absurd rabbit hole of Joseph Smith and the birth of Mormonism.
Quoting flannel jesus
If we have to ignore 99% of what Christian leaders and scholars throughout history have said on what constitutes the essence of Christianity, then we are engaged in post hoc rationalization. Anyone who is truly interested in understanding a religion will attend to the leaders, doctrines, and history of that religion.
Quoting flannel jesus
I think this is entirely false. Or else, if your method is finding the most ignorant person in the room and hoping they help your case, then your method is deeply flawed. Those who are knowledgeable of what Christians have historically believed and practiced, and what Mormons believe and practice, do not conflate Christianity and Mormonism.
So you are a Mormon, then?
Quoting flannel jesus
Did you know that's false? Unless by "many" you mean "a small minority." We can't just redefine words whenever it suits our purposes.
Quoting flannel jesus
:roll:
The problems with Mormonism and the mendacity of Mormon apologetics go deep, and should definitely be opposed. But that is a separate matter. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the vast divergences between Mormonism and Christianity. For example, South Park mocks both, but as it turns out they still require separate episodes.
On the contrary, English is my native language. Your approach to this topic is about what I would expect from the average American middle-schooler, but I think you are older than that, no? Making a strong distinction between a belief and an affirmation and then anachronistically projecting that distinction back in time such that creedal professions of Christian faith do not involve predication is a confusion that American youngsters are prey to, but the slightest historical knowledge of the Nicene Creed and its history would clear up such confusion (such as, for example, passing knowledge of the prolonged debates over the appropriateness of predicating homoousious of Jesus at Nicea I).
The idea that one professes the Nicene Creed without involving themselves in affirmations and predications is deeply confused, and I am not quite sure where to begin with such an idea. I can only ask you to engage the points and arguments that have already been given, rather than sidestepping them.
There are literally hundreds of Christian denominations, if not thousands. You'd be hard pressed to explain why Mormonism fails to fit the general definition yet continue to hold the others do.
Your reference also to "Christianity" as a single monolithic belief system that has marched forward for the past 2024 years references no actual religion or belief system.
Denominations split to this day
For a list of denominations:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations
Mormonism began in 1830, but it's not as if the other Christian traditions all trace back 2000 years and have held consistently throughout. Fundamentalism, for example, traces back to the early 1900s.
For a list of 62 denominations that began in the 19th century: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Christian_denominations_established_in_the_19th_century
Christianity is not immutable and the relative antiquity of one denomination over another doesn't afford it greater legitimacy.
Protestantism generally relies upon a restorationist theology where they claim their views restore the true beliefs of the church lost by the Catholics (of which there are varying movements within that tradition as well). The point being that it is well accepted among Christians that the church does change, leaving the various denominations to argue what it truly ought to be.
But, sure, a Catholic can deny a Baptist is a Christian and insist upon his prescriptive definitions, but that would serve no purpose other than provocation, as it's not like the terminology usage will change among the traditions nor will the belief systems
IIRC Mormons hold that JC is the literal son of god and not god himself placing him outside of the nicean-creed understanding of christianity.
The difficulty is that your thesis is so far beyond the pale.
Beginning in the 17th century there emerged a historical school which argued for a low Christology based on Enlightenment/naturalist presuppositions. In my opinion it is already intellectually dishonest to approach history with an anti-supernatural dogma, for in that case the conclusion that Jesus was not divine is a fallacious petitio principii rather than a substantial conclusion. Thus I would call such people "faux historians." Nevertheless, there is at least precedent for such an approach, and therefore it is not beyond the pale in a cultural or scholarly way.*
But the proponents of a low Christology have always had to contend with Nicea I, given that it obviously represents a high Christology. Thus progression theses were developed, such as the Hellenization thesis, which sought to make the high Christology of 325 consistent with the supposed low Christology of Christs life, three centuries earlier.
What you are doing is actually unheard of, and I have never seen anything like it. In one way or another, you are trying to deny that Nicea I represents a high Christology. Not even the faux historians are willing to engage in the mental gymnastics required to support such a bizarre thesis. Nicea I is simply a data point of high Christology. It is in no way up for grabs by proponents of a low Christology, and no one disagrees on this! Such a thesis would be the flat-earthism of historical theology, and the argumentation which claims that if the Christians at Nicea had wanted to make affirmations and predications then they would have used fact-language instead of belief language, is on par with the argumentation for a flat Earth. I don't usually engage flat-Earthers, and so I find myself in an odd spot.
* This approach is now crumbling, first because Enlightenment presuppositions are becoming more delineated and contextualizable, and second because the natural interpretive context of Second-Temple Judaism has replaced the artificial Enlightenment context, thus upending the Enlightenment conclusions. For those who are interested, three days ago Larry Chapp interviewed Brant Pitre on a closely related topic, Jesus and divine Christology.
Quoting tim wood
This is the sort of non-argument I would expect from a flat-Earther. Like it or not, there is predication about Jesus occurring in the Nicene Creed, and it is obviously supernatural predication:
"Ah, but they didn't really affirm any of that because in the 17th century an (ultimately unsupportable) distinction between facts and mere beliefs emerged," is not a real argument. It doesn't even come close to a real argument.
You may be confused about the Christian balance of apophaticism and cataphaticism, but this is beside the historical fact that Nicea I affirmed and predicated of Jesus a high Christology. Dismissing the historical realities on the basis of quasi-theological hunches will not do. If you want to promote a low Christology you should follow in the footsteps of your forebears and avoid Nicea I at all costs, rather than pretend that it supports your conclusion! Your strange anachronistic claims about "beliefs" end up being little more than unfalsifiable arguments.
The number of Americans who see such claims as contestable speaks volumes about the American approach to religion. :sad:
But if you follow the pluralistic argumentation closely, the proper conclusion is that no one can say anything substantial at all when it comes to religion or the supernatural (and Tim Wood projects this mindset back into the 4th century). So it's not, "Mormons are Christian," but rather, "You said something substantial about the Mormon religious status, and you're not allowed to do that," or, "If someone says that they are something, then they are. You aren't allowed to contradict them." Luckily, this approach is open even to those who know nothing about Mormonism or Christianity.
No that's exactly what I'm saying Mormonism fits. Why don't you tell me what you think they said constitutes the essence of Christianity?
I know the Mormon view of the trinity is distinct in that they believe it to be 3 separate beings, making it a polytheism. It can be argued that the triunity of other denominations ultimately fails and is actually a polytheism anyway.
As to the rejection of the Nicean Creed,
"Non-Trinitarian groups, such as the Church of the New Jerusalem, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Jehovah's Witnesses, explicitly reject some of the statements in the Nicene Creed."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed#:~:text=Non%2DTrinitarian%20groups%2C%20such%20as,statements%20in%20the%20Nicene%20Creed.
The schism between the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church relates to the addition of "and the son" to the Creed:
As the Creed states:
"I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets."
This makes Jesus co-equal to the Father, which is not universally accepted. In addition to Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglicanism also questions the "and the Son" language.
This is the filoque controversy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filioque
Anyway, the point being that "Christianity" describes a wide range of views and even the the Church's early efforts to crystallize the faith into a concise summary isn't universally accepted.
Been there, done that.
Except that I don't consider Christianity "false". There are no "true" religions so there can't be any "false" ones. Religions begin; grow and flourish because they satisfy the needs of their members; increase in complexity; continue on for a long time; or begin to fail and may go extinct. As far as I know, nobody is making sacrifices to Jupiter or praying to Zeus. Competition is a factor, as is outright suppression. Christianity both competed and suppressed.
Jesus was a man. Unfortunately, his biography was a highly partisan project. There weren't any impartial inquiries into his activities and ideas. I believe Jesus was an itinerant preacher who attracted a following. He had some very good ideas which remain worthwhile.
It's a lot easier to put up with this (probably) very scruffy, (quite possibly difficult) man, than his latter day followers, and the 2000 year accretion of dogma.
Quoting Art48
I first did what a lot of Christians have done -- I absented myself from the church. Later on I developed more specific objections to Christian belief and practice (and the beliefs and practices of the other two received religions).
I may believe in God (some days yes, some days no) but in any case, I'm not an atheist. Atheists seem to feel their non-belief is some sort of great accomplishment. It's not.
"?[LDS] Church members believe that "The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Mormonism#:~:text=LDS%20Church,-Latter%2Dday%20Saints&text=Church%20members%20believe%20that%20%22The,is%20a%20personage%20of%20Spirit.%22
On the other extreme:
Maimonides conception of God (the Jewish view of extreme monotheism):
"That also means that, in Aristotelian terms, one cannot actually say God is . . . and proceed to enumerate Gods attributes. To describe the Eternal One in such a sentence is to admit of a division between subject and predicate, in other words, a plurality. (Maimonides writes in Chapter 50 of the Guide, Those who believe that God is One and that He has many attributes declare the Unity with their lips and assume the plurality in their thoughts.) Therefore, he concludes, one cannot discuss God in terms of positive attributes.
On the other hand, one can describe what God is not. God is not corporeal, does not occupy space, experiences neither generation nor corruption (in the Aristotelian sense of birth, decay, and death). For obvious reasons, Maimonides conception of the Supreme Being is usually characterized as negative theology, that is, defining by the accumulation of negatives. Maimonides writes, All we understand is the fact that [God] exists, that [God] is a being to whom none of Adonais creatures is similar, who has nothing in common with them, who does not include plurality, who is never too feeble to produce other beings and whose relation to the universe is that of a steersman to a boat; and even this is not a real relation, a real simile, but serves only to convey to us the idea that God rules the universe, that it is [God] that gives it duration and preserves its necessary arrangement.
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/maimonides-conception-of-god/#:~:text=God%20is%20not%20corporeal%2C%20does,by%20the%20accumulation%20of%20negatives.
And then there is the Catholic notion of the God head, which, candidly, I don't understand:
"In Catholic theology, we understand the persons of the Blessed Trinity subsisting within the inner life of God to be truly distinct relationally, but not as a matter of essence, or nature. Each of the three persons in the godhead possesses the same eternal and infinite divine nature; thus, they are the one, true God in essence or nature, not three Gods. Yet, they are truly distinct in their relations to each other.
In order to understand the concept of person in God, we have to understand its foundation in the processions and relations within the inner life of God. And the Council of Florence, AD 1338-1445, can help us in this regard.
The Councils definitions concerning the Trinity are really as easy as one, two, three four. It taught there is one nature in God, and that there are two processions, three persons, and four relations that constitute the Blessed Trinity. The Son proceeds from the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. These are the two processions in God. And these are foundational to the four relations that constitute the three persons in God."
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/explaining-the-trinity
Using this as a criteria for considering someone a Christian has one really bizarre effect: it means many, probably most, perhaps all early Christians don't count as "Christian" either. Early Christians meaning the first couple centuries of Christianity.
But this was the subject of the OP. It asks what a Christian would do if he were to learn that Jesus was but an ordinary man. If we are convinced that a Christian must accept the divinity of Jesus, then the answer is that person would necessarily cease being a Christian.
I think there's room for the counter-argument, which is that the person could remain very much a Christian because Christianity isn't defined in the brittle way that many demand it be. A common attack on theism by atheists is to point to the most unworkable parts of specific theistic theological systems and then to declare there is no God.
I'm not Christian, but should I one day consider it, it won't be based upon a literal belief that a woman bore God so he could be sacrificed in order to forgive the world of sinfulness, but it would be instead because I might find the primacy that that belief system places upon forgiveness worthwhile of believing in.
Where to start? As far as I'm concerned Mormons do not even believe in God. They think that "God the Father" was once a mortal human who, through Mormon doctrine, eventually became "God," or became god of the planet Earth. Mormons think they too will be able to become a god like "God the Father" became a god, with their own planet. When monotheists look at this sort of thing the obvious conclusion is that Mormons do not believe in God at all.* Or at the very least, "Mormons believe in God" requires a remarkable degree of equivocation.
This is a good example of the fact that any resemblance between Mormonism and Christianity is only superficial. Those in this thread who are claiming that there are no substantial differences between Mormonism and Christianity, despite the unanimous testimony of knowledgeable Christians and scholars, have no idea what they are talking about. It beggars belief that folks in this thread are claiming that those who distinguish Christianity from Mormonism only do so on an ad hoc basis. The content and claims in this thread are falling below even what one might expect from Reddit.
(I have Covid and am trying not to post on more complicated topics, but this topic is easy enough.)
* Note too that this falls short of classical polytheism, which generally posits an ontological distinction between gods and humans.
No one cares whether Mormons call themselves Christian. The question is whether they are Christian. The question is whether Christianity means anything at all. The pluralistic counter-arguments are simply vacuous.
I have an acquaintance who knows absolutely nothing about any religions. He was raised atheist and does not care at all. He also has a very strong opinion that all religions are the same. This results in the silly claim, "I know nothing about religion, but I have a strong opinion that all religions are the same." Of course his opinion is not worth a dime, but he is nevertheless welcome to hold it. This thread is just a redux, "I know nothing about Christianity, but I have a strong opinion that we cannot say that Mormons are not Christians." Three cheers for uneducated opinions. :clap:
That one does not care about a question does not show that the question is nonsense or unimportant. It merely shows that it is outside their scope of interest. And to opine on things that one has no knowledge of or interest in is to claim to know what they obviously do not know, and when people claim to know what they do not know the well of quality discourse is poisoned.
I'm circumcised, so I just assume someone had good reason.
You didn't answer what you quoted though.
If Jefferson et. al. were mythological, and if I were an American, I might still appreciate and live by the Constitution.
If Socrates and Kant were mythological, I might still appreciate and live by the philosophies contained therein.
Why can't I appreciate and adhere to Christian principles and deny its history. Who says that you have two choices, believe and belong, or reject and stay clear?
Love your enemy.
Yes, but if only [that one stuck around]
I understand that implementation & interpretation is a whole other matter.
Where and when was it said? And by who? Don't leave me hanging.
Here is the translation for the hard of hearing: Christians believe in God. They do not worship a "God the Father" who has a human past. The Christian concept of God is strictly incompatible with the Mormon view that God was somehow a former human and that all good Mormons will become gods and inherit their own planet. For Christianity this is not a minor mistake; it is a category error that destroys one of the most basic and most fundamental presuppositions of Christianity.
Yes, you could follow Christian principles without believing in its supernatural aspects.
Some Christians, I suspect, do exactly that.
I'd add that choice in the OP if I were to do it again.
I asked for a source on "love your enemies" that predates Jesus. You did not provide one. ChatGPT attributes the idea/quote to Jesus.
Depends. Can one's saviour still be Jesus Christ? I'd think so, regardless of hte divinity instantiated from on high within the person of Jesus Christ.
I guess that's where we disagree. Almost all simple definitions of Christianity that weren't explicitly designed to exclude Mormons, don't exclude Mormons. The most basic and fundamental presuppositions of Christianity are in tact in Mormonism. Those are mainly belief in Christ and in his resurrection, and seeking salvation through that belief. I don't think fundamental Christianity requires any super specific philosophy about what God exactly is. Hell, I don't think most Christians in history even gave that question much thought - and that's equally true of most Mormons, among whom this "god as man" doctrine is obscure and niche and not at all universally accepted.
Quoting tim wood
I see the two are in the same ballpark, but J goes further with it. "Love your enemy" is not a part of Jewish tradition or the Hebrew Bible. If it was you'd hear Jews talking about it. It is a thoroughly Christian teaching. Maybe the seeds of it can be found in prov. 25? Jesus makes strong, memorable formulations.
Quoting tim wood
I believe J spoke aramaic which was then translated into greek for the gospels.
Quoting tim wood
we should keep in mind that much of the gospels is likely elaboration by evangelists, at least this is the conclusion of the jesus seminar - a group of some ~200 biblical scholars.
Quoting tim wood
I'd count new spins (interpretation) on old words as innovation.
Quoting tim wood
I know "love your enemies" circulates now but consider it in 30 AD under Roman occupation in Judea. Were Jews supposed to love their Roman occupiers? It's a strange notion, especially in an ancient world with strict hierarchy and honor. It is not one that I'm aware of any rabbis - ancient or current - ever teaching.
Sure one is taught not to hold a grudge, but to love one enemy is a very different matter. I find Jewish ethics to be quite practical and realistic. There's an emphasis on making things doable. One is not expected to love one someone who severely wronged you.
Quoting tim wood
Yeah, I can see how the transactional nature devalues the statement. In the Jesus seminars they consider "your reward will be great" (Luke 6:35) to be a later addition. "Love your enemies" and "forgive and you'll be forgiven" remains core, genuine Jesus. IMHO by limiting the scope of what Jesus says you'll find a stronger Jesus.
However, I have since learned science requires us to observe what we wish to study and test what we think we know. Since no one directly experiences God, that is not possible. Even if I could interview Him, I don't think I would understand Him any more that I would understand Einstien and his explanations. I just do not know enough to understand much of anything.
Maybe if we lived 300 years I might know enough to understand God.
Im Catholic. Go to church every Sunday because the Church tells me to. Believe the history in the New Testament (because of the ethics in the whole Bible). Etc., etc. Am inspired almost every Mass to do something better.
But in my down time (most of the time) I use reason and my own wits to get through the day. I have little use for God in philosophical discussion for instance, or when crossing a busy street.
At one time I was convinced that the whole Catholic thing was another story, like so many others.
I became an atheist.
If Jesus didnt really rise from the dead and didnt promise eternal life, why would I (or anyone) bother to make some new delusion? Or look for some less interested form of God than a man who would die on a cross for me, to show me He is God and pave a way to eternity? With all of that out the window, what do we need any gods for anyway?
But then the question is, what if Reason itself was false, would you throw away all of your thinking and your languages and definitions and meanings (except for those meanings that were useful to cross the street safely, or as safely as possible I should say)?
If I realized that everything I realized was false, including this sentence, I wouldnt do philosophy anymore either.
It's called textual analysis and I don't have an issue with it. We can go through texts and glean different "layers" - what is earlier and what was a later addition. I'm reading Alter's 5 Books of Moses now and he does this with the Torah. From memory, I was reading Deut 30 yesterday and Alter mentioned 4 different authors in this passage -- a very ancient source, an ancient one, a redactor, and a later editor. Books/texts in those days were more open. There are different layers to them and a skilled textual critic/translator can discern them.
If I'm going to construct Jesus -- I'm going to start with what is core - what scholarship has determined is definitely him and I can circle outwards from there into the "probably Jesus" and "maybe Jesus" layers. We need a way of correctly & reasonably prioritizing information otherwise we can get bogged down/hyperfocus on scarcely mentioned details that were likely if not certainly later additions. The Jesus seminar seeks to start with the certainties and broaden from there. We're also able to resolve certain contradictions with this approach.
And something can be useful but also be a later addition. Later addition doesn't mean necessarily mean wrong. Later additions can be good interpretations or give us insight into the writer's personal understanding. But if something isn't in the earliest manuscripts that is notable for me. So no, I don't just treat every single word the same weight.
Quoting tim wood
sure -- focus on what he definitely said and start with that. and yes it needs to be interpreted.
Aside from all this, I find Jesus a strange and radical figure. Many of his parables are morally dubious. They really do make me question. E.g. the parable of the workers in the vineyard - could a society survive long term with something like that? Absolutely not.
That parable and many others cut against the grain of traditional wisdom or what we would expect. A lot of his teachings have this aspect - unconventional, often short term in scope -- that imo sets him apart from other itinerant jewish preachers at this time.
It is simply the question of what is meant by "God" in that sentence. And we don't even need to do a deep dive into the term. We need only ask, "Would it include a formerly mortal human who is eventually given special powers?"
Quoting tim wood
It is an enormously simple question to determine whether the Mormon believes in the "God" just mentioned. I'm still perplexed that we are having this conversation at all.
Mormons think they will ontologically become an independent "God." Christians think it is blasphemy to say such a thing. But no biggie, right? No significant difference there. :groan:
This strikes me as deeply confused, and I have no idea why you believe such a thing.
Cutting to the chase, you think that ancients, including Christians, did not make firm claims about supernatural entities. You think they only "believed" things about supernatural entities, which you say does not even rise to the level of predicating existence.
The simple answer here is the one I gave at the outset: any belief that is worth killing and dying for is a belief held with strong certitude and conviction, and the ancient world was full of religious and supernatural beliefs worth killing and dying for. Speaking specifically about Christians, they were willingly martyred for their beliefs, and there were severe internecine persecutions following the Council of Nicea on both sides. There was leniency up to a point in the Empire, but there was also some umbrella of orthodoxy which was enforced quite strongly, before and after the Christianization of the Empire.
To take but one famous example, for refusing to accept Monothelitism in the 7th century Maximus the Confessor was found guilty of heresy, was tortured, had his tongue cut out, had his right hand cut off, and was sent into exile for the rest of his life. Apparently Maximus' opponents did not fully understand the nuance of your distinction between Maximus' "believing" Dyothelitism and Maximus' "holding" Dyothelitism. :grin:
...And again, I think your distinction is nonsensical all throughout. On this forum we have some rare folk who go about saying they believe X but they do not believe X is true, and this strikes me as a deeply confused position. No one can ever get them to say what it means to believe X without believing X to be true. Traditionally the "belief" distinction has to do with the mode of assent, not with the conviction or certitude involved.
Quoting tim wood
I could go on, as there are so many problems with your theories... The reason folk in the modern world are shy about professing belief in God is because the society is increasingly secular, and because of this it is unfashionable. So they make up new concepts of "belief." But in the ancient world most everyone believed in supernatural entities, it was only a question of which one(s) and where. That God or gods existed in some form was a fact of the ancient world, and there was no shyness about affirming it. The trouble came only with worshipping or denying the wrong ones. In the ancient world to say, "I believe that gods exist," would be like saying today, "I believe that cars exist." The natural response would be, "And...?"
It is perhaps also worth noting that the Creed was never primarily about the existence of God. That was taken for granted and obviously affirmed. The profession of the Creed is much stronger than that. It is something like a marriage vow. It represents a kind of relationship and covenant with God, hearkening back to the Hebrew Shema.
"Christians" have been accusing each other of blasphemy, setting each other beyond the pale as apostates, heretics, heathens, or whatever, from before the time when the Bible as we know it was compiled; the texts to be included and those to be exiled to the Apocrypha were part of that conflict. Whatever consensus of belief has come to be accepted by you or anyone else about what constitutes a Christian has been arrived at through debate and conflict that has rejected more inclusive positions.
[quote=Matthew 16:24]Then Jesus told his disciples, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."[/quote]
Thus speaks the man who ought to know, and according to His standard, there are very very few Christians or have ever been; nor is belief the criterion.
Because Christi alone, and no other, is the narrow gate. But the gate is wide that leads to destruction (death). Why? Because not everyone, which means the vast majority of humanity, will never accept Christ--they will not find or choose Christ's way even if it becomes known to them or if it is shown to them; rather, they will choose to walk through the gate that is wide and supposedly, more easy and open.
"Blasphemy is mean" is not a logical response.
This is not an argument. It is an emotional appeal for inclusivity.
In your response <here> you entered directly into the Mormonism discussion, which is what I was responding to.
Quoting tim wood
The original topic between us, which you began, is about the Creed and its significance. Note that you began with the premise that the significance of the Creed tells about the essence of Christianity, and thus that the two topics are not separate.
Quoting tim wood
Thanks for giving a source for your claims. First I want to note that Collingwood's argument against the "God" of the logical positivists on pages 185 and 186 suffices also as an argument against the Mormon conception of "God" as something compatible with Christian thought.
Now I think Collingwood becomes confused when he goes on to talk about presuppositions vs. propositions. When the Creed talks about God it is not talking about a presupposition of natural science, and Collingwood is right in saying that, "[The Christian Church] has not consistently taught that there can be no proof of God's existence."
But I don't want to get bogged down in Collingwood's personal project. What is the crux of the thesis you are proposing? It seems to me something like,
If this is not what you are saying, then what are you saying?
Quoting tim wood
What sense does it make to believe in unicorns without believing that unicorns exist? These look to be strange word games. Are you a Christian who claims to believe in God without believing in God? Are these positions related to your own claims?
Quoting Cambridge Dictionary
I would certainly agree that is blasphemous to call oneself God's ontological equal or to believe that one can "become" God.
Yet I'll take the blasphemous mormon who follows the word and teachings of Christ to a T over the foul mouthed and hateful christian who immediately claims adherence to all christian dogmas. Neither are perfect, but I would say the former is more "in christ."
We are not discussing the question of who you "will take." We are discussing the question of whether Mormons are Christian.
To say that something is and is not is a prima facie contradiction, and belief does not sidestep the problem in the least. What is required to solve the problem of the contradiction is a distinction:
Or:
You can take it as a general rule of life that to say one believes X is to say that one believes X is true. I repeat:
Quoting Leontiskos
Ultimately, for the Christian, what matters is who is in Christ.
Those who set themselves up as God are not in Christ.
They believe they'll one day become Gods, no?
We could also throw out the pantheists and panentheists.
Sure, and because of that they might view Christianity the way Buddhists view Buddhism, namely as a vehicle that can be dispensed with once the destination is reached. But to make the Christian participatory metaphysic temporary and superable is already to have left Christianity behind.
I'm guessing you dramatically edited a post while I was looking up a link:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosis_(Eastern_Christian_theology)
Perhaps, not relevant to what you have edited to, but it seems relevant to what I thought you were claiming earlier.
...And deification is an example of the Christian participatory metaphysic, not a counterexample against it.
Yes, true.
It's a bit like asking, "If you left the United States, where would you be?" Well, it depends a great deal on where, when, and how one leaves the United States.
Or else, "If your car broke down, what parts and tools would you buy to fix it?" Erm..
But to be fair to the OP, it sets a suitable pace for what has been a remarkably silly thread.
Ok, I guess I misinterpreted of misattributed something.
Christians and Mormons are a bit like bees and wasps. The uninitiated is liable to confuse them but someone who understands their significant differencestheir respective theologies and historieswill see them as very different animals. Of course if one doesn't care and only wants to avoid being stung, then one can think of bees and wasps as identical.
It's not that I am unaware that Mormonism began as a weird cultish offshoot of Christianity and that many if not most Christians, do not consider Mormons to be Christians.
The fact is, I'm sufficiently initiated to understand that many Christians are apt to label large swaths of Christians as heretical. For example:
https://carm.org/about-theology/what-is-theosis/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whore_of_Babylon#Reformation_view
It's just an aspect of the inherent divisiveness of Christianity.
This is a good example of the non sequitur I referred to earlier. "Christians are divisive, therefore Mormons are Christians." The conclusion does not follow. The argument could only plausibly function as some variety of ad hominem.
No. I wasn't making any such argument. I was just pointing out what is easily recognized with sufficient knowledge of history.
It's not an argument indeed. It is a piece of history; the plain fact of the matter is that the term "Christian" has always been disputed from its inception and such identity labels nearly always are disputed.
No true philosopher would be unaware of this, or claim to possess the truth of the matter. :wink:
I'm so glad you asked me, because not many people know this. He didn't just carry his cross up the hill, when he got to the top, he was nailed there to it and left until dead. The difficulty for followers though is that he did it for others, whereas followers tend to do it for their own salvation, to the extent that they make any sacrifice at all.
Don't know why I never thought about it this way. Well put
Thanks. I wouldn't call myself a Christian, but I appreciate the story, and hate it when people wilfully distort the meaning or claim the copyright on interpretation. We are surely all God's people, and none are excluded - that's the story.
Quoting unenlightened
To be fair, that's how Saint Paul himself apparently read the story and he believed that one should follow Jesus' example, at least as he seems to say in the letter to the Philippians (source: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians%202&version=NIV, emphasis mine):
Quoting unenlightened
This is also correct if one takes literally this passage, for instance (source: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Timothy%202&version=NIV):
I used to be a Catholic. In some contorted ways, I probably still am. I do not believe that "Christianity is false". Christianity is just not good at defending itself. Everybody and their little sister can insult the religion and nobody cares. Well, in that case, I don't care either.
That's a lovely thought, and I do not want to deny it. Then yes, as our current pope said to a small boy who was afraid that his unbelieving dead father was in hell, there are many Christians, and many of the best of them do not know it of themselves. But God sees our heart. Well he didn't say that, but he gave comfort to the child in that sort of vein.
Yeah, so much better, are religions that encourage homicide when members get all offended. :roll:
So you were just pointing something out for no reason and with no point or purpose or argument? This is highly unlikely.
No, your thesis is that Christians who believe in God's existence do not necessarily affirm that it is true that God exists. Given that you aren't honest enough to admit this after so many posts, I think we can be done. I don't like talking to folk who rely on evasion, equivocation, and ambiguity to avoid engaging in real philosophy.
"The term 'Christian' has often been disputed; therefore it is not possible or permissible to exclude the LDS from Christianity."
That's an argument, but it's not a good one.
Quoting unenlightened
Your last sentence seems to represent a copyrighted interpretation, no?
Quoting unenlightened
I'm glad you mentioned this, and Dylan's version is also highly appropriate. Why were Jesus and Stephen killed? Because two versions of the story collided and neither party was willing to budge. Both sides refused the relativism which claims that it's all for naught and there are no right answers. Dylan sees the wisdom and inevitability in this.
Then don't make that argument, and don't accuse me of making it.
Quoting Leontiskos
No I am reciting a creed, not The creed. We can discuss, as long as you do not have exclusive rights to the truth.
So then what were you doing with it? Is this supposed to be another example of saying something with no rhyme or reason?
Quoting unenlightened
Everyone who holds things believes they are true, and if "Christianity" is to mean anything at all then it must exclude some stories. The level of inclusivity that many desire is simply not compatible with sensible speech. Not everyone who claims to be a thing is necessarily that thing, on pain of absurdity.
And I hold that Christianity purports to be an universal religion. What it excludes is hatred, Some folks have not heard the Good News, others have not Yet accepted it, but none are excluded.
Sometimes I post things in hopes of recognition occurring. Suppose we take Christianity specifically out of the picture.
Do you see a downside to divisiveness in religions? For example, dividing people into Brahman/Dalit or Muslim/dhimmi?
Is "sheep" vs "goats" any less divisive?
Do you truly not recognize that you are making an argument here? That you are attempting to get the interlocutor to infer a conclusion?
What does this have to do with the topic at hand? The Christian who says that a Mormon is not a Christian is not saying that the person is excluded from abandoning Mormonism and accepting Christianity. It would be incorrect to say that because some people are not Christians therefore they are excluded from ever becoming Christian. The first step in becoming a Christian is recognizing you are not a Christian. This holds for anything, not just Christianity.
Again, I see a lot of non sequitur in relation to this question of whether Mormons are Christians, and the force is coming from pluralistic culture rather than from any special Christian premise.
I see it more as sowing seeds.
Matthew 13:
I have some experience with seeding paradigm shifts in the minds of Christians. I'm happy with doing what I find works for me, and pretty unconcerned with you getting it for now.
Sowing seeds has an inferential purpose.
If someone claims that they have said something on a philosophy forum for no reason at all, I would suggest that they simply lack self-knowledge. Folks hereabout keep mentioning that Christians are disputatious, and I assure you that it is not for no reason at all. They do it because they think it proves a point. It's only when one points out that the putative point is fallacious that they fall back on the idea that they made the statement for no reason at all. But that's icing on the cake in a thread like this.
To think that an inferential purpose is the only psychologically pertinent purpose for sewing seeds is psychologically naive. Although I'll certainly grant that it is common to think that way when one is accustomed to think in the folk psychology terms promoted by a religion. I have faith in your ability to develop a more psychologically informed view though. I recommend reading Cialdini's Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.
Quoting Leontiskos
Of course I didn't say what I said for no reason at all. I just don't think you are in a position to understand my reason, in light of your lack of recognition of the role of your subconscious in your thinking. Also, I don't expect such a lack of self-knowledge on your part to make much difference to the results of your subconscious considering whether Christianity is divisive and in a socially destructive way. (Of course I'm inclined to experimentation and open to seeing how the results of this experiment go.)
Quoting Leontiskos
Your uses of "they" are ambiguous, and I'm not seeing any clear connection to discussions I have read on the forum. So if you want a response to this, I'll need clarification.
I suppose I would pay your attempted insults more mind if I thought you had any pull or intelligence. Self-knowledge is at an all-time low, here. In fairness, I am making the assumption that you are not the 13 year-old you act like. If you are then your IQ rises considerably.
I guess we'll see.
What do you mean by 'defending itself'?? How should religious people defend their religion?
IMO the best 'defence' may be to give an 'exemplary' life. I mean probably the best way for christians to defend their religion would be to lead a loving life and a life of service, i.e. 'carrying the cross' or 'having the mindset of Christ Jesus' as said in the quote in the post above.
Certainly, the fact that, say, historically people have used to make 'forced conversions' and has been imposed violenty probably is also a major motive of the modern crisis of the religion.
Also, in the Gospel of John we read (18:36, NIV):
Also, 'consorship', instead of say, trying to make a philosophical defence against oppoents, has been a disastrous way of 'defending themselves'.
I would say that because Christianity is unfashionable at the moment, anyone can make terribly fallacious arguments against Christianity or Christians and no one bothers to correct them. The thinking is something like, "Yeah, these arguments are garbage, but we know Christianity is false or unimportant anyway, so who cares?"
Well, yes, there's also that but not only that. And also it is perfectly understandable if christians do not make a philosophical apology for those arguments.
It seems that many here are under the mistaken impression that Christianity is and always was monolithic. The Church Fathers were were perhaps the first to change what was a pluralistic movement into a unified Church with "official doctrines and practices. They never did quite succeed.
Early on it was believed that Jesus was a messianic rabbi, a son of God, not "The Son". Under pagan influence the Hebrew ?? (bên) came to take on different meanings. The First Council of Nicaea attempted to settle the dispute over the nature or ontological status of Jesus. The controversy has never been resolved, but the majority of bishops backed by the emperor Constantine accepted the position that Jesus is homoousios, the same in essence as God. "Full God". Christians were and some still at divided on this question. Others believe that Jesus was deified, something others are also capable of becoming. Still others believe he was "just a man", but not just any man. And here we find various stories within Christianity of this man and his significance.
I put you on ignore for reasons that have been made manifest, but I can write another post. My response will help show why you are on ignore.
It seems you think that God's existence cannot be proved, and therefore it cannot be affirmed. So then you look at Christians who say they believe in God and you conclude, "Ah, they can't be affirming that God exists, so they must be believing in God without affirming God's existence." You think that in doing this you are taking up a very intelligent and benevolent position, and you disdain the peons who say that Christians affirm the existence of God. It goes without saying that you can't find a source to support your position for the life of you, and of course anyone with two brains cells to rub together knows that Christians (and all theists) affirm the existence of God. Be that as it may, you continue to pat yourself on the back and evade every inquiry into the substance of your strange position. You may have even read a theological text or two and confused yourself further by reading your stupid theory into the text.
When your position is scrutinized, instead of giving a transparent answer you evade and pivot to the standard variety of atheist apologetics, "Well then you must be able to prove that God exists, so do it!" You would turn a thread on Christian alternatives into a thread on proofs for the existence of God, just like all the banal atheists roaming the internet. Of course there are serious inquirers into the existence of God, but you don't seem to be one of them, and this thread is not about that topic. "I can't prove God's existence, therefore Christians don't affirm God's existence," is a deeply impoverished argument.
The notion that you think your stupid position makes you sophisticated is curious. It is like the fellow who thinks he is sophisticated because he refuses to admit that 2+2=4, and everyone who wants to do geometry or algebra or calculus just ignores his raving and goes about their business. Or like I said earlier, it is like the flat-Earther. You are of course free to start a thread about your stupid idea. Call it, "Do Christians really think God exists?" I don't think it will fool even the theologically illiterate users within this thread, and I certainly have no interest in arguing with flat-Earthers, but you can carry on in that way if you like.
Many more are under the impression that there are no good historical or theological reasons to hold that Mormons are not Christians. I hope your post was not yet another non sequitur argument for that idea.
Paine was responding to Art48, and there is no evidence at all that he was limiting Christianity to Nicean or Chalcedonian Christianity. Curiously, Art48's OP is more theologically astute than your excursus, because it is a very late phenomenon for self-identified Christians to identify Jesus as a mere man. Dozens of early Christian sects would have disagreed with the Christology of Nicea, but none of them held that Jesus was just a man. All of the disputes among early Christians were about what sort of non-mere man Jesus was.
You can either get accused of being a coward or else of being a brute. Feel free to pick your poison.
Well, as Socrates said ""It is better to suffer injustice than to do wrong" (I don't remember where and if the phrase is exactly this, but I do remember this in one platonic dialogue). Also in the Bible it is said, for instance, "For it is better, if it is Gods will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil." (1 Peter 3:17, NIV translation). So, yeah, I would say that it is better to have a reputation of being a 'coward' than act as a 'brute'. And I would say that specifically for Christians being a 'brute' contradicts these words: "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place." (John 18:36, quoted before)
That would be the first-order assessment.
Then, there is the second-order one: Regardless of whether you are yourself a coward or a brute, do you prefer to be surrounded by cowards or by brutes?
You see, I could myself be a coward but if I am surrounded by brutes, I can always count on someone else to do the dirty work for me.
That is a strategy that allows me to remain myself Socratically kosher but simultaneously still benefit from useful external effort.
? I have not said anything about Mormons. I pointed to the early Jesus movement prior to the establishment of the Catholic Church and the First Council of Nicaea.
Quoting Leontiskos
That is correct. I did not say or imply that the examples I pointed to are the only cases. I don't know how you would reach this conclusion. Yet another non sequitur argument!
Quoting Leontiskos
This is simply not true. This is why I pointed to the use of the term son in the Hebrew Bible. It is used many times both in the singular and plural. It often refers to kings and rulers and never means a god.
The plural can be found in Exodus:
(4:22)
Quoting Leontiskos
As I said:
Quoting Fooloso4
"Mere man" is ambiguous. The traditional Jewish notion of a messiah is a man not a deity. A man with a mission from God is still a man. An exception man is still a man. The disciples, Paul, and other Jewish followers did not believe that Jesus was a god.
In Paul we find the idea that resurrected bodies are "spiritual bodies", s?ma pneumatikos. As a resurrected body Jesus would no longer be a physical body. This holds for all men who have been saved and will be resurrected. Not "mere men", but men none the less.
Yes, the dominance of one view over competitors is prominent in the history of the first two hundred years after Jesus. Attempts at understanding how the 'kingdom of heaven' was visualized before that time is also murky and involves questions only a time machine could solve. What I find interesting is how committed to a single world that will change when X happens that many of these incompatible views have. The collection from the Nag Hammadi is remarkable to me because they do not point to a common ground so much as suspending talk of such a thing. Singularities placed in close proximity to one another. The work upon the Dead Sea scrolls displays a similar insistence upon singularity.
I grew up in a Protestant tradition and the insistence upon a single path was heard by me in all of its cacophony. I do take the teaching that 'identity', on that level, is between me and my maker. It is not an explanatory principle for many other things.
Yes.
As I understand it, this was the genius of at least one strand of early Christianity guided by inspiration, the witnessing of the indwelling of spirit. It was all but destroyed by the Church Fathers. To this day it is vehemently denied by those Christians who desire to be led, to be told what to believe by other men claiming the mantle of divine authority.
You have mentioned before the Gospel of Thomas and the idea that the kingdom is within. If this is believed then, as the Church Fathers feared, one cannot be subject to their authority.
I wasn't raised Christian, but I have read the Gospels and this is always how I've treated the "kingdom of heaven" primarily. Perhaps the kingdom of heaven indicates some external future state of affairs, but the far more relevant interpretation is that the kingdom of heaven is within us. "The kingdom of heaven is within" makes the kingdom of heaven parables personally applicable/relevant. That to me is one of the most interesting things about the gospels.
As I recall that conversation, the passage I emphasized in Gospel of Thomas was Jesus saying that the Kingdom of Heaven had arrived. That is a strong difference from the Pauline expectation of the end of this kosmos and the beginning of the next. The Gospel of Thomas does not rule out the kosmos being transformed through the new order. The emphasis upon personal transformation is clear.
The instruction to follow James the Just after Jesus leaves suggests a possible alignment with the Jerusalem followers, not an association typically considered a 'gnostic' source. I do not detect the tension between law and faith central to Paul's letters. Getting stuffed into a clay jug has made the topic difficult to study.
'Not being a brute' is hardly the same as 'being a coward'. If 'not being a brute' means to be 'non violent', I hardly see how being 'non violent' is being a coward.
BTW, it is for me unsurpassingly strange how some christians chose to be violent etc when their core belief is that God himself chose not 'defend Himself' and die on the cross. And, say, when Saint Paul reccomended to have the 'same mindset' as Jesus (see my posts above with the quotations). I consider it one of the most disconcerting mysteries in human history.
Thanks my friend. If I recall correctly we also discussed during this or another conversation the meaning of the kingdom being at hand. This can be taken to mean, as it often is, soon to be, but alternatively as already here, within our reach. Paul and his followers believed that the end was near, about to happen at any moment and that it was a cosmic or geo-political event, rather than a matter of personal transformation.
The picture is further complicated by differing beliefs in resurrection, whether this would be spiritual or physical. The Gospel of Thomas says nothing about resurrection. In addition, various notions regarding the messiah. Whether this was to be a victory of the Jews over their enemies or a new world order or personal salvation.
In any case, what is clear as that the OP's question about Christianity being false is ill-formed.
This is the topic at hand, and it is addressed to christians.
Quoting Art48
You seem to be obsessed with mormons for some reason; I haven't said anything about them. You seem to want to police who can address the topic, otherwise there is no reason to endlessly discuss the boundaries of what a christian is.
As a one time protestant who came to believe that Jesus was just a man, my answer has been that it made little or no difference to the truth of what Jesus taught about how to live. I do not generally call myself a christian because it would confuse people like you, who expect supernatural belief in all religion.
As to mormons, i think they consider themselves christian, and I can see that you do not, and I couldn't give a flying fuck either way.
And your statement seems to have nothing at all to do with it. So again I ask, What does this have to do with the topic at hand?
But that's a key issue with religion. It's innate subjectivity and relativism. I also grew up in the Protestant tradition. Baptist. We were taught that all religions were a pathway to the divine. We were also taught that the Bible was an allegorical work and not intended to be taken literally. Religions, even within the one tradition, can't agree on anything.
The problem with this of course is what to do with the Jesus story. And given the tedium of the Bible as literature (for my taste), why not pick something more engaging as a source of allegory? The Great Gatsby, perhaps? It even ends in sacrifice, execution and redemption.
Have you now reduced a historical question to an exegetical question? The number of ex-Protestants in this thread is not coincidental.
Quoting Fooloso4
Of course he did. Paul incorporates Jesus into the Hebrew Shema in places like 1 Corinthians 8:4-6. He says that Jesus bears the image of God in 2 Corinthians 4, and the name of God in Philippians 2.
I am not sure if you include me in that census. You are not in a position to judge what I believe or not. My uncertainty is for me to wrestle with. I am in still within the conversation. I take seriously the invitation to the party. Otherwise, it is of no concern. If I thought a horse was dead, I would not encourage it to perform better.
It is about the meaning of a term and how that meaning changed when interpreted by pagan ears. That change can be seen by looking at the relevant texts. This is a historical question.
Quoting Leontiskos
This is anachronistic.
Quoting Leontiskos
The passage makes a distinction between the one God, the Father, and the one Lord, Jesus Christ. This distinction is not present in the Shema. In the Shema God is the Lord. If, as a Jew, Jesus recited the Shema he was not praying to himself. I seems highly likely that he would have been appalled to learn anyone would claim that the son is the father. That God is two and not one. The same goes for Paul.
Quoting Leontiskos
An image is not the thing it is an image of. Your image in a picture or mirror is not you.
The passage says:
(4:6)
All of mankind is God's image:
(Genesis 1 :26)
Quoting Leontiskos
Are you referring to this passage:
(9)?
God did not gave himself a name or exalt himself. The passage refers not to God himself but to Jesus.
Here again a distinction is made between God the Father and Jesus the Lord
I don't know where you fall in any of this, but in general you tend to be a more precise thinker who does not carve out a position based on emotional reaction, so I do not assume that this trend would apply.
The sense of inclusion you refer to varies greatly amongst different denominations. My mother (as a child) was prescribed by a doctor to leave her Southern Baptist church in order to stop the nightmares she was experiencing. It worked. The family moved to a Methodist church. Now that church is more "inclusive" of other faiths but strictly as figurative versions of a person only having access to salvation through Jesus Christ. The distinction between "allegorical" and "literal" means widely different things to different people.
Another element to consider is the emphasis upon the danger of walking the walk versus expressing an opinion. Bonhoeffer's preaching on the difference between cheap and costly grace could not put that danger more sharply.
Less evangelistic but no less focused upon action is Kierkegaard and his equation of freedom with capability. While a person may be commanded in their solitary existence before God, we cannot do that to each other. Thus, Kierkegaard developed the role of indirect communication as a form of life.
Since the conversation has turned to Americans, I will top this off by a reference to Paul Holmer who emphasized that language of faith stands above the language about faith. That is a helpful way to approach the role of creeds and liturgy as a topic of theology even if one has no skin in the game.
Quoting Tom Storm
Not very apocalyptic, however. One needs the tale twice told to get the tang of Dostoyevsky watching the church execute Jesus again.
Refusing to "go over the top" or to open fire when instructed, is an act of cowardice.
Christianity is deemed to have some responsibility for the fact that Germany lost both world wars:
Except during the Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1944, Judaism did not encourage the Jews either to put up a fight. It was all too easy to mass transport them to the extermination camps.
There are moments in the life of a nation in which the day is carried away by the courage of their men, effectively turning them into murderous brutes. Judaism and Christianity are deemed to be liabilities and not assets, when the going gets tough.
I am convinced enough of my religion that if I truly was convinced that the Christian God was not real it would be because of a slight difference, not a major issue, and I would likely know where to look for a religion that fits the logical process that convinced me better.
Additionally, while this might have been the right choice given the post, Jesus could never have been just a man, in that he was either divine or he was a hypocrite who told others to repent while being so prideful as to make himself divine when he was not.
I don't even think that it was Judaism per se that helped spark/encourage the Warsaw ghetto uprising. I just know that at that point the Jews were finally able to acquire weapons from the Polish resistance. Rates of firearm ownership among Jews in Eastern Europe was very low. There were a few uprisings at concentration camps but likely not so much due to Judaism as much as the knowledge that they'd be killed regardless and that they wanted to choose the manner of their death. Judaism tends to emphasize fighting bravely (and choosing your battles wisely) and also staying alive as opposed to telling its adherents that this life doesn't matter & only the next one does.
- Matthew 16:17
And here saying his father conferred the kingdom upon him:
Luke 22:29
If you are going off of the Bible as a source, it's hard to see a way that Jesus could have just been an ordinary man, or a "great moral teacher" as many say.
* For example, Mark 14:64
Good advice. Let's look closer:
First, the accusation of blasphemy covers a great deal more than a claim to divinity. To break the Law is blasphemy. Jesus claimed to have fulfilled the Law. The Jewish authority did not agree. Much of what he did could be considered breaking the Law. Clearly the question of the Law was of central importance. Second, the term 'divine' did not mean that someone who was called divine is a god, but rather has an important relationship to God. A son of God, for example. Third, is the political problem. A "king of the Jews" would have authority over the Jewish leaders. This is not something they would accept. Fourth, related to the others, is the claim to be the Messiah. The Messiah is divine but is not God.
Let's go point by point:
1.From My Jewish Learning
(Luke 23:1-2)
To subvert the nation is to deny its laws. The second part supports what I said in 4.
2. [As it turns out Jews also sometimes thought that a human could become divine. [/quote] Bart Ehrman
3. (Jesus, King of the Jews -Wikipedia)
This also helps explain why the Roman authorities would get involved. Jesus vs Caesar.
4. See 1 above.
Quoting Fooloso4
Feel free to defend either of these two claims. The second claim is more truly
Not sure how it is relevant in a discussion about Christianity.
Quoting Tarskian
And this at least in the case of WW2, it has been a good thing, I would say.
Anyway... 'self-defence' doesn't make oneself a 'brute', in my view. If one acts violently only when an existential threat is there, I wouldn't consider that an act of 'brutality'. 'Brutality' is when one kills, oppresses etc in other situations where other means could bring the same result. For instance, I would say that killing unarmed war prisoners is an act of brutality (it is considered a war crime after all), whereas killing during a battle isn't. I don't think that all soldiers are 'brutes' because they are willing to kill in battle. I would say that for many of them violence is only a tragic necessity.
But even any 'theological' defence of 'self-defence' in Christianity is IMO questionable, let alone a defence of being a 'brute'. Frankly, I see even self-defence as problematic if one wants to follow the Gospels, Paul etc
But again I am not sure of what your point is.
It is obvious that there are situations in which fighting is simply necessary. That is indeed difficult to reconcile with the ambiguous, nebulous and misleading notion of fake pacifism typically advocated by Christians, which I consider to be in violation of the most fundamental laws of nature.
This problem does not exist in Islam. The following is a typical jurisprudential ruling in Islam on the matter:
This ruling is completely in line with human nature, with biology, and with the laws of nature. On the other hand, I reject the following statement:
I will never endorse this view. In general, I have converted from Christianity to Islam for various reasons but mostly because I consider a large number of Christian teachings to be in violation of the laws of nature and to be contrary to very basic tenets of fundamental biology.
I point to sources that support what you claim I made up, The fact is, I did not. If you were arguing in good faith you would admit that. I would accuse you of arguing in good faith when you made the accusation, but giving you the benefit of doubt it could have simply been ignorance.
My post began:
Quoting Fooloso4
This is true. The term means, as quoted above, reviling God. Convicting Jesus for blasphemy is not evidence for Jesus' claim to divinity. See, for example, Acts 6:11:
According to the commentary at Bible Study tools:
Then do it. Defend either of those two claims. :roll:
"To break the law is blasphemy." This is the sort of nonsense that most 10 year-old Christians or Jews could correct. To see someone with such ignorance speak with such confidence is remarkable.
Quoting Fooloso4
The irony. :lol:
Apparently, you are trying to walk back your claim that:
Quoting Leontiskos
You are doing everything you can to distance yourself from that claim.
Acts, as quoted and referenced, says that Stephen spoke blasphemous words against Moses and against God. To speak blasphemous words against Moses means to speak against the Laws of Moses.
In Luke we find:
(5:21)
Jesus response is:
(5:24)
This is fully in accord with what I said above:
Quoting Fooloso4
You seem to have missed the larger picture. The Gospel accounts are not historical accounts. They are polemical. They accuse the Jewish leaders of bearing false witness, including charges of blasphemy. And, as is evident in Acts, this meant blasphemous words against the Law. The division between the Jewish followers of Jesus and those who came to be known as Christians who did not follow the Law begins with Paul. Acts is attributed to Luke, who was Paul's companion. The accusation of blasphemy, according to this story was false. To bear false witness is not to give an accurate historical account.
Here is your argument:
I can explain why this is a non sequitur if you need me to.
Breaking the Law is not blasphemy, but the one who claims to have power over the Law blasphemes if they are not above the Law (as God is above the Law):
Quoting Matthew 12:6-8
Jesus gets accused of blasphemy for doing things like placing himself above the temple, or calling himself lord of the sabbath, or teaching and reinterpreting the Law "with authority," or forgiving sins. These are all the unique prerogatives of God, and not of lesser divine beings. Jesus and his accusers both know this.
Quoting Fooloso4
You are missing the subtlety of the writings entirely. The subtlety of the Gospels and the Jewish mind is characterized by a verse like John 11:51. The charge of blasphemy is both correct and incorrect. It is correct in that it is not a conspiracy theory spun up out of nowhere; it is incorrect in that God's Son has God's prerogatives. What is blasphemous for others is not blasphemous for him.
For example, Luke 5:24 does not say, as you seem to think it does, "Oh, I'm not God but I can forgive sins anyway." Instead he says, "I, in my uniqueness as the Son of man,* can forgive sins, and to prove it I will cure this paralytic." The premise that only God can forgive sins is left untouched, significantly. The center of that text is the forgiveness of sins, and the healing is meant to support Jesus' authority to forgive sins.
* Cf. Daniel 7
I suppose the Muslim version of this claim might be "if anyone slaps on the right cheek, slap them back so hard that they don't dare ever slap you again." Now that would be more in line with human nature.
I have given textual evidence that speaking against the Law is regarded by the accusers as blasphemy. Have you forgotten your claim that:
Quoting Leontiskos
or are you just trying to bury it?
As to the second point. What I said was:
Quoting Fooloso4
It is not simply a matter of breaking the Law, as it every offense however minor would be a blasphemous offense. What is at issue destroying or abolishing the Law. (Matthew 5:17)
When you say:
Quoting Leontiskos
you are making my point for me.
Quoting Leontiskos
Was the author of this a Jew? A rabbi? An expert on "the Jewish mind"? A proper characterization is captured in the oft told joking expression: two Jews and three opinions.
Quoting Leontiskos
Young's Literal Translation has son of man. Other sources confirm that bar enash means human being .
You said this:
Quoting Fooloso4
I asked you to defend it and you gave a non sequitur argument. Now you are finally admitting, albeit quietly, that you were wrong:
Quoting Fooloso4
So we agree: your earlier claim that breaking the Law is blasphemy is false.
Quoting Fooloso4
What is your conclusion here supposed to be? That Jesus is claiming that anyone who is human can forgive sins? Do you even believe yourself when you make these sorts of points, like Aristotle's boxer who swings without knowing what he is doing? Can you see anything at all through the foggy polemicism of your glasses?
It requires no discernment to understand that what is being spoken of is not a mere human being:
If you like:
Yes.
However, the general biological rule that governs all sovereign primate groups remains applicable.
In-group violence between individuals or subgroups is considered a breakdown in law and order, to be adjudicated by the ruler, who judges which of both sides is at fault.
Violence is legitimate only between sovereign groups ("war"). We share this biological rule with chimps, baboons, and gorillas.
An in-group cycle of violence is preferably cut short by means of victim compensation:
Proportional retaliation is to be deemed a natural reaction and cannot be held against the parties in the conflict. Furthermore, no party in the conflict is expected to offer the other cheek.
The ruler must intervene, however, and the judge will attempt to solve the conflict by means of financial compensation. Such conflict-resolution process at the societal level of the sovereign group is simply a biological necessity.
Our laws must be compatible with our fundamental biological nature. Otherwise, the alternative is mayhem.
It's worth noting that the compilation dates of the Gospels
cover a wide period. One should not take "scholarly consensus" about the order and dates of their compilation as meaning "this is most likely right." Questions of dating, order, and authorship are all highly speculative.
Second, the dates and theories about authorship jump around over time despite no new evidence being introduced. It's a sad fact that novelty and provocative theses are how you sell books and get tenure in academia. Hence there are very strong incentives to embrace provocative theses because they are provocative or novel. The fact is, a book that says "honestly, we really don't know, we have to speculate with a high degree of uncertainty," doesn't sell books.
The other factor here is that this is obviously a politically charged subject. Catholics look to support their tradition. Atheists often have an incentive to poke holes in traditional interpretations regardless of the merits of their case. You have folks like Erhman who are both talented scholars but who also have deep personal issues with Christianity, a bone to pick with it, advancing highly speculative theses and presenting them as if they a fairly certain.
This sort of thing is endemic to virtually all ancient history. One problem is that, even if we can be 95% certain that x, y, z... etc. are each true premises when it comes to history, it will still be the case that a speculative theory built off of these premises has an extremely low likelihood of being free from significant material error. It's just like how if you roll a 10 sided die once, you can be pretty confident you won't roll a 9. Roll is 50 times and your confidence collapses. This is the sort of thing they teach when you do intelligence analysis and I really wish historians would get more of it, because they don't always seem to understand this.
I'll mention Ehrman here because I am familiar with his arguments. For his case to work, the dating of NT documents needs to be "just so." But, even ignoring that "scholarly consensus" (which Ehrman doesn't even appear to follow) is not a very good metric of certainty, we might consider that even if we are 90% confident of the dating of each part of the NT individually (and we are not nearly that confident), this would still make an argument for a very particular ordering very statistically unlikely to be correct. (Of course if St. Peter is the author of I Peter this point is moot anyhow, because that author thinks Christ is divine)
That all said, generally we have St. Paul's letters put forth as the earliest Christian documents. St. Paul clearly, in no ambiguous terms, thinks Christ is God. It is in Christ in which "all things hang together," (Colossians 1). James is often put forth as an earlier text (although there are counter arguments to this). James very clearly thinks Christ is God and deserving of worship. The author of I and II Peter clearly thinks Christ is God. The author of I John and the Gospel of John (very likely the same person) thinks that Christ is God, although this is less relevant because these are generally considered to be later writings (although their compilation dates overlap with Luke).
Point being, from what are likely the very earliest Christian sources Christ is seen as divine. The argument of folks like Erhman, that there is "no way" first century Jews would have ever thought their leader was God is undercut by the fact that the earliest source we have clearly shows a first century Jews who very obviously thinks Christ is God and thinks this despite close contact with the Apostles who followed Christ.
This is simply playing with an equivocal usage of "divine." The way in which the authors of Colossians (widely agreed to be St. Paul) and John think of Christ's divinity is as being that through which the world is created and holds together. "Apart from him not one thing was created that has been created," and "in the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos WAS God."
And even in the other Epistles you have advice to offer direct prayers to Christ, who judges mankind. By contrast, angels always reject prayer directed towards them. The type of divinity indicated is specific. It might not rule our some sort of subordination à la Arianism however.
The blog post might do well to point out that what are widely considered to be the earliest Christian texts, St. Paul's letters, refer to Christ in creating and sustaining the universe.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
The earliest Christian sources are maybe from the early 50s?
Ehrman says that shortly after J's execution/resurrection discussions of his divinity occur among his followers and that there are a range of views towards J in the early church. I don't see any evidence that his followers viewed him as God during his lifetime. Amy Jill-Levinson argues that Jesus was an observant Jew. After J's death and resurrection, yes - the view that he is divine wins out in the early church and becomes Christian dogma.
Once a Jew believes Jesus is divine is he essentially becomes a Christian. So yes the earliest Christian sources view J as divine... to be a Christian source is to view J as divine.
Sure, and that's [I]possible[/I], but what are likely the earliest documents that exist even mentioning Jesus mention him as divine.
[Quote]I don't see any evidence that his followers viewed him as God during his lifetime. [/Quote]
Of course you don't. And you don't see any evidence to the contrary either because the Epistles and Gospels are the very first historical documents that mention Jesus. Suppositions about "what did people believe decades before we have a single scrap of evidence," are pretty much pure speculation.
I find the statements based on what "Jews of the era would have been willing to believe," to be particularly off-base given we have plenty of historical evidence, from both the Bible and other sources, to show that the Jews of antiquity very often engaged with surrounding religions, became followers of them (up to and including abandoning Judaism completely) or incorporated other faiths into Judaism. This is a recurring theme in the Hebrew scriptures and the Jewish works only included in the Septuagint. It's an obvious focal point of the religious class compiling the sources.
If we didn't have Philo and co. we'd probably hear similar things about how no Jew (or "no true Jew") would embrace Platonism or blend it with Judaism. Indeed, Protestant scholars tried to make exactly this sort of argument as they struggled to dislodge Greek thought from their form of Christianity (which is quite difficult given its influence is all over the NT and clearly in some OT books, such as the Wisdom of Solomon).
Quoting Leontiskos
You have a noxious habit when you are unable to understand the scope of an is of accusing me of a a non sequitur argument. The Law includes Torah, Mishnah, and Talmud. To break the Law is not limited to infractions. The accusation of blasphemy is not limited a claim of divinity as you eventually go on to admit:
Quoting Leontiskos
To say that Gentiles need not follow the written Law, is a grievous example of breaking the Law.
Quoting Leontiskos
Evidence?
(Wikipedia, Sanhedrin trial of Jesus)
I pointed to the problem of historical veracity in an earlier post.
Quoting Leontiskos
Absolutely not!
(On the Other Hand: Ten Minutes of Torah - What Is Blasphemy, Anyway?)
Now there might be so disagreement between rabbis, but interpretation and disputes over interpretation are part of the Law. So, both the violation of at least some of the Laws as well as rejection of the Law fall under the accusation of blasphemy.
Quoting Leontiskos
You ask what my conclusion is then put words in my mouth, as if this is my conclusion. Another example of arguing in bad faith. If you had waited form my answer I would have told you that it not just anyone. Once again, Jesus, according to the Gospels is not just any man.
The appropriation of Daniel works against you.As pointed out above: The Aramaic phrase bar enash means human being. The is no decisive evidence in Daniel that Jesus is this man . Whoever the man is, he was given authority, glory and sovereign power by the Ancient of Days. So again, not just any man, but a man none the less.
I think you have it backwards. It is not playing with an equivocal usage. The term itself is equivocal.
Jacob wrestled with a divine being. (Genesis 32:24-30) The being is called a man, but:
(30)
This being is often regarded as an angel. Man, God , Angel? Divine or of the divine? Is what is of the divine in some sense also divine?
One thing that should be noted is that unlike in Christianity Judaism is not bound by official doctrines.
With regard to the nature of Jesus, a distinction is made during the conflict addressed at the Council of Nicaea between apotheosis and divine ousia.
I think it quite easy for pagan followers of Jesus to regard Jesus as a god. After all, Caesar and humans are called both divine and gods.
I take your point that some Jews either modified or rejected the Jewish teaching but, according to Mark 12:29 he recited the Shema:
and called it:
Paul, however, who preached to the gentiles said:
(1 Corinthians 8:6)
Two points here: He distinguishes between God from whom all things came, and Christ through whom all things came. Jesus is not God. He is not the creator. The one Lord is not the one God.
Right, but Fooloso will argue against all of these sources and Tim Wood has literally claimed that the Christians of the Council of Nicea did not even affirm that God exists. I don't see that any amount of evidence is going to overcome this level of post hoc rationalization.
Quoting Fooloso4
I doesn't need to be. When you claim that breaking the Law is blasphemy, that means that all breakings of the Law are blasphemy. If one can break the Law without blaspheming then your claim that breaking the Law is blasphemy is false. The fact that you still can't admit this basic logic just shows what a hot mess you are. Speaking with such an unserious person is an utter waste of my time, and this is also on par with the intellectually dishonest way you discuss other topics. You are now on my ignore list.
Complete nonsense! It seems more than a bit desperate. There are a great many laws in Judaism. Only a few of them are punishable by death. This like arguing that since breaking some laws in US jurisprudence are punishable by death that means that all breaking of the law is punishable by death.
Quoting Leontiskos
Thank you!
Indeed. Hellenism was influential on Jewish thought in antiquity and several canonical books (especially those written in the second temple period) do contain Hellenistic themes and influences. The rabbis did disqualify some works from canon on the basis that they were essentially "too Greek", but it would impossible to purge all Greek influence from Jewish texts.
I may have missed something, but when I read the Jesus of the Gospels I mostly see him arguing Jewish Scripture, interpretation of the law (halaka), using Jewish methods of argumentation, Jewish parables, referencing Jewish liturgy etc. I don't see him trying to Hellenize the Jews. I don't see him discussing Plato with the Pharisees. Philo studied it as he was an Alexandrian and he was from the upper classes which had the time and resources to pursue these activities.
The view that Yahweh can be man is shared by no Jewish sect ever but I grant you that it is possible that his followers believed it. Elijah and Elisha also performed miracles including raising the dead. Then again, the rabbis (possibly?) accuse him of leading his followers to idolatry so who knows. Why would Peter deny him 3x if he believed Jesus to be God?
Ok, thanks for the clarification.
I take it you mean Amy-Jill Levine. Her scholarship is solid. I read "The Historical Jesus in Context" and some interviews somewhere. Being raised in a Jewish household she was unencumbered by belief in Christian dogma. She did not have to struggle with the belief that Jesus is God.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
The term 'divine' is problematic. For example:
Psalm 82:1
Whatever these divine beings or gods are, they are distinct from God, the creator of the universe. Distinct from "God the Father".
Talk of gods is a holdover from polytheism. The commandment that you shall have no other god before me is not a claim of monotheism but of henotheism - this god and no others is to be your God. Monotheism is a later development, one that can be found in Isaiah but not earlier. By the time of Jesus there is only one God.
The question then is whether the term 'divine' as it is used by Paul when preaching to the Gentiles and by the Greek speaking authors of the Gospels are claiming that Jesus is God or a god or rather of God. In the case of Paul it might mean that he has renounced his Judaism or, as seems far more likely, since the end is near and he wants to save as many souls as possible, he is no longer concerned with such theological distinctions. In the case of the gentile authors, however, it seems likely that the distinctions between men and gods was not so clear cut.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I agree. I think this is why the disciples were against Paul preaching to the Gentiles. His use of the distinction between the Law as written and as it is in one's heart was his own blasphemous invention.
Yes, thank you. :lol:
Currently reading "the misunderstood Jew."
Quoting Fooloso4
Yes, and this is a great post by the way. Agree that Psalm 82 is a polytheistic holdover reflecting a very old tradition that pre-dates monotheism. But yes, when we speak of conceptions of divinity we should distinguish between how e.g. Jews use it and Greeks use it. According to the ancient Greeks, some mortals can gain divine status after death. In Judaism the messiah is not God. The messiah is no more "God" than you or I although he's certainly a very special person.
That's right, and therefore claiming to be the messiah is not blasphemy.
and yet:
Quoting Leontiskos
Leontiskos is pretending to ignore me, so maybe someone else can sort this out. The claim to divinity might mean that to be divine is not to be God, but when he says:
Quoting Leontiskos
and:
Quoting Leontiskos
one might then think that not all Christains believe that God and Jesus are consubstantial, but nope:
Quoting Leontiskos
Asked twice be two different members, first:
Quoting flannel jesus
He answers by saying what it is not. We might all agree that Christianity is a meatball but this tells us nothing about what it is.
And then:
Quoting tim wood
he says:
Quoting Leontiskos
This is a bit better, but it goes too far in the opposite direction. According to this Jews are Christians.
Where are we? The messiah is not God. But if the messiah is not God then either Jesus is not the Messiah or Jesus is not God. If Jesus is not the Messiah then Jesus is not the anointed one. Jesus would not be Christ.
Can anyone make sense of this contradictory mess?
So much for ignoring me. That did not last long. But perhaps someone else can sort out what you are either unwilling or unable to do. Perhaps someone else can sort out the different contexts so that your various claims either hold together or at least do not contradict each other.
I'm sure the referee will award you a point for eliciting a reply to your trolling.
Can you provide some examples of that?
Martin Luther emphasized a direct witnessing of the words of scripture in place of the middlemen of Orthodoxy. That began a tradition of questioning the history of the text which led to scholars in Germany looking into the denouncement of heresies by the earliest voices of 'established canon' as not being the last word on the matter. In the 18nth century, Johann Salomo Semler is an important figure in that field of textual study. His work began the attempt to understand Marcion in the context of the Hellenistic matrix of his time. Church Fathers, such as Tertullian, wanted to appropriate the narrative of Judaism where Marcion wanted to separate the 'cruelty of the older testimony' from the 'purely good' message of the new. This meme has been repeated since then without need of a specific canon.
I don't want to pit my generalization against yours. This topic is a ground of sharp contention amongst scholars today. I put my request forward to understand what you have in mind when speaking of dislodging 'Greek thought from their form of Christianity."
:up: There have been plenty of messianic claimants in Judaism, including some very colorful ones.
Wouldn't Christianity be a prime example to the contrary? Jesus and all of the initial Apostles were Jews. Unless we're going to claim that all the earliest sources are not credible, in which case there is nothing to be said on the issue one way or the other. There were also Jewish Christians who nonetheless followed Jewish law into the fifth century. And there is Messianic Judaism today
St. Paul states in unambiguous terms that Christ existed from before the foundations of the cosmos and that Christ is the active agent in the creation and sustainment of the entire cosmos (e.g. Colossians 1). This is clearly different from being something like a Greek demigod/god or angel.
Likewise, the Gospel of John's opening lines include: "And the Logos (Christ) was God," when discussing the creation of the cosmos, and claims that all beings are created through Christ. Revelation is equally explicit.
Later arguments about subordinationism, modalism, filioque etc. rest on ambiguities in what would become the Christian canon, or at times on rejecting some of those texts and/or holding to rejected texts. But clearly the type of divinity is quite different from the deification of Roman Emperors. Roman Emperors were not the creators and sustainers of the cosmos.
As for the "Greek authors," the entire New Testament is in Greek.
To be clear, Ehrman's thesis is that only certain parts of the NT give us a view of what the "real earliest beliefs of the Church were," and that he has reconstructed them. He doesn't apply his thesis to the NT as a whole because this would be ridiculous. It also rests on claims that the texts in question were later edited. So it's a claim about the "original" texts as recovered by scholars, and about which texts represent "earlier views" (as opposed to merely different views). It also relies on contesting the authorship of the Epistles, which has always been a point of interest/contention, even going back to folks like Origen. It doesn't make any sense to apply this thesis to the NT as a whole.
And certain contentions like "the NT authors made Christ God specifically because they were upset that Roman pagans ranked their emperors higher than Jesus," represent arguments from psychoanalysis made about authors we know virtually nothing about.
He himself in interviews and proponents of his view conflate the fact that some of his premises have "scholarly consensus," and that he is indeed a "respected scholar," with the idea that his speculative claims to have accurately reconstructed the views of the Apostles for a certain date range (a date range for which we have absolutely no sources) are also "scholarly consensus." But per his own reckoning, not one single word written by a Disciple has come down to us. But no one wants to buy a book that says "it's impossible to know," or one that says "this is speculation that is highly unlikely to be correct in all its details..."
John M. Frame's "A History of Western Philosophy and Theology," is a fine example of such a view. Frame is "unapologetically Reformed," as positive reviews put it. And this shows in things like him dismissing the whole of the Christian mystical tradition and the idea of divine union or theosis as "unbiblical" a term he uses even for writers who quote Scripture virtually every line. Obviously, the idea isn't that folks like St. Bernard of Clairvaux don't use the Bible. It's that they lost the original (correct) understanding of the Bible under the influence of Platonism, Stoicism, etc.
I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying if you think this is "controversial" because this isn't an accusation from the outside (although Catholics do bring it up, e.g. the Regensburg Address), but something Protestant authors are happy to put forth as a worthwhile goal: the recovery of the Christianity of the "early Church" (where this specifically means the Church of the first century or so, not necessarily the Church Fathers of the first five centuries, since the Patristics are very heavily influenced by classical philosophy).
Any treatment of the Reformation will include the anti-rationalism/anti-metaphysical trends and the reaction against classical metaphysics and its further evolution in scholasticism I imagine. They aren't small threads.
MacCulloch's "The Reformation" is one of my favorite surveys of the era. Durant's "The Reformation," isn't the best history, but since he focuses on ideas he has some pretty good coverage of stuff like the letters exchanged between Luther and Erasmus (which touch directly on this issue. Erasmus claims that predestination would cause us to suppose that God is evil, Luther counters with the claim that human reason is too corrupted to know true goodness, setting up an equivocity between the goodness of God and goodness as known and experienced by man that will become very pronounced in wholly voluntarist theology along the lines of "whatever is good is good simply in virtue of the fact that God wills it.")
Or, if you've spent any time in American Evangelical churches, you could just consider the view of first century Jews common there, something like universal literacy, memorization of the Scriptures, and obviously knowing them in Hebrew (which of course meant they spoke Hebrew). It's an image of the focus on the individual study of Scripture so important in these churches today, and it comes across in media depictions, e.g. in the Chosen the Apostles are literate, have memorized large sections of Scripture, etc. What is to be "recovered" as an ideal has to fit the ideal.
There are even helpful memes to poke fun at this https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fp0XQtsWcAMRJK1.jpg
To be more precise, he is the image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation. This is hardly unambiguous. As the image of God he is not God. If he is first-born he is not the creator. Through him and in him differs from 1 Corinthians 8:6 where a distinction is made between God from whom all things came and Christ through whom all things came. The NIV translation has "firstborn over all creation". Young's Literal Translation has of all creation. RSV also has of all creation. If he is "of creation" he is created. If he is "over all creation" he is still firstborn, that is, created.
The Gospel of John is markedly different from the synoptic gospels and the writings of Paul. Nowhere in those gospels does Jesus call himself God. In addition, John begins:
How is it that the word could both be with God and be God?
With "in the beginning" what John says would have sounded familiar to Jesus and his disciples, but in the Genesis account God the creator stands apart from His creation. If John was aware of this difference he presents a brilliant rhetorical piece of writing. The word of God as opposed to the Word shifts the voice of authority.
In John Jesus defends himself by saying:
Is it not written in your Law, "I have said you are gods
(10:34-36)
He is most likely referring to Psalms 82:6-7:
I said, You are gods; you are all sons of the Most High. But you will die like mere mortals; you will fall like every other ruler.
John leaves out the second part. If Jesus understood himself to be a son of God in this sense then he is not the one unique Son". And, of course, those who die like mere mortals are mere mortals. Jesus goes on to say, according to John, that he does the work of his father. (10:37-38) Does he do the work of his father or is he his father?
He goes on:
"I and the father are one"
(10:30)
this expression of unity can be taken to mean united together or one and the same. But the latter is at the expense of ignoring the distinctions between him and the father that he repeatedly makes. It is only when his words are heard with foreign ears that his words come to take on a very different meaning. A pagan meaning where the distinction between man and God is obliterated.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes. That is the point. They are not Jesus' Jewish disciples. If any of them were Jewish they still spoke to a gentile audience with gentile ears, that is, with gentile and/or pagan beliefs and understanding.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Do you agree that it is impossible to know? If so, then it is true that whatever might have been written or told by a disciple has not come down to us because we cannot know that this or that was said or written by one of his disciples.
We do not know what Jesus said or taught. Between Jesus and the Gospels stand many voices. The voice of Paul stands out not only in his own writings but that of other Gospels. But Paul never saw or heard Jesus speak. He relies first and foremost on his own vision. A pious view of this is that he was witnessing the indwelling of spirit. That he was inspired. One problem with this is that the Church Fathers sought to destroy the writings of others with similar experiences. There were other voices that were silenced by the Church Fathers. Voices that if they were heard might give us a very different understanding of Christianity. We might ask: by what authority did they take this upon themselves?
Yes, and I assume in copying that line you actually finished the sentence, which continues: "for by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authoritiesall things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything."
These are not statements that apply to angles or even Zeus. Christ is God "manifest in flesh," (1 Timothy 3:16), etc.
It is readily apparent that the "Son" is not one son among many in John.
For example, the prayer in John 17: Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so he can give glory back to you. For you have given him authority over everyone. He gives eternal life to each one you have given him. And this is the way to have eternal lifeto know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth. I brought glory to you here on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began."
There is a distinction between the sheep and the Good Shepherd, e.g. John 10 "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me,[a] is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.
You are confirming my suspicion that you jump around texts looking for whatever lines support your fancy without actually reading them.
It really isn't. Jews spoke Greek and wrote in Greek. The Septuagint was motivated by the fact that they increasingly only wrote and read Greek. That the NT is in Greek says very little about the authorship of its contents.
But you can consult scholarship on this point to see that the claim that the entire NT (including, say James) was written by gentiles for gentiles, that Paul was a gentle, etc. is not even a fringe position. Nor is it in any sense definitive that none of the epistles attributed to Jesus disciples were written by them. I have no idea where you are getting this certitude.
Well no, this is also overreaching. You keep using the lack of definitive evidence as an excuse to make definitive claims. If Peter wrote either First or Second Peter then we have a direct account from someone who lived with Jesus for years, etc. Likewise for the quotations of Jesus. It is entirely plausible that they are direct citations of Jesus himself or direct quotes of people who knew Jesus (indeed, this is at least scholarly consensus on the origin of the quotes in the Synoptic Gospels). It's impossible to confirm either way however, you could just as well claim Jesus, Peter, etc. all never existed (indeed, this is a popular thesis to sell books).
When was John written? Does it reflect the beliefs found in the synoptic gospels? We cannot say what Jesus would have said, but can this be squared with Jesus recitation of the Shema and calling it the first of our commandments? (Mark 12:29)
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
The authorship is in dispute. I think the emphasis on false doctrines and trustworthy saying is significant . It seems likely that whenever it was written there were different teachings vying for authenticity. Is the fact this this one made the canonical cut and others did not indicative of more than the preferences of the collectors?
What does it mean to manifest? This too is open to dispute. To manifest is to show, appear, or be seen. This is not the same as for God to be in the flesh.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I agree. John appropriates the passage from Psalms for for own ends. It is readily apparent that in Psalms there is not just one son. This raises the question of authority. Is Psalms authoritative or John? It seems far more likely that Jesus would come down on the side of Psalms.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
There is also the distinction between father and son in this passage.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
This is true, but:
(Language of Jesus)
and provides references. In addition to the question of language there is the question of culture. An audience not familiar with Jewish Law and teachings may not hear a term such as 'son' in the way it is used in the Hebrew Bible even if they are reading in Greek translation.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I did not say that Paul was a gentile, but that he spoke to a gentile audience. Paul himself, as you probably know, confirms this.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
My certitude is not so great that it will hold in the face of evidence to the contrary. Do you have such evidence? Which Gospel or which part of the Gospel? Do you reject the source theory such as Q source?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
If we cannot distinguish between what Jesus actually said and what is attributed to him that is because of the stories and claims that stands between them. Or do you have a way of making that distinction?
The basis is referred to as the Hellenization Thesis, often traced to Adolf von Harnack, but it also has earlier antecedents in many anti-philosophical approaches to Christianity. You could think of three camps: Christianity was strongly Hellenized, and it was bad; Christianity was strongly Hellenized, and it was good; Christianity was not strongly Hellenized.
:up:
Paul literally has the Son creating the spiritual powers here in Colossians 1, namely the other "divinities" that some in this thread are identifying with Jesus.
Of which Jerome wrote "Desiring to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither the one nor the other."
When asking you my question, I was focusing upon the conflicts amongst Jesus followers about what had or had not happened. What we can establish through surviving texts is, as you have noted yourself, limited. The reference made to one of the founders of textual analysis was not meant tot authorize him as a theological spokesperson.
I need to ponder the matter before addressing the theology expressed there to speak to the issues that concern you.
Thats an interesting point. Ive read a little of Father Andrew Louths Christian Mysticism: An Introduction to the Tradition*. Father Louth addresses the tension between the Greek philosophical tradition ('Athens') and Hebrew scripture ('Jerusalem'). He discusses how this tension was historically expressed, particularly in how Greek philosophy influenced early Christian theological development, especially in medieval (and later) mysticism. He discusses how certain strands of Christianity, especially within the Reformed tradition, were more skeptical or even hostile towards mysticism, often because of its perceived connection to Platonic or Neoplatonic ideas, which were seen as too speculative or incompatible with a more scripture-centered faith. What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?, as Tertullian put it. He was a forerunner to the sola scriptura polemics. Likewise I recall that Luther expressed antagonism towards aspects of Aquinas theology on account of the latters advocacy of Aristotles philosophy, which Luther saw as pagan.
Myself, Ive always felt that, on the contrary, the mystical facets of Christianity were those most relevant in our (or any) day and age. Hence I feel much more drawn to some elements of Catholic and Orthodox faiths as far as their philosophy is concerned. And many of the more recent Christian philosophers I admire, such as David Bentley Hart, Evelyn Underhill, Dean Inge, et al, are nearer in spirit to the Greeks and the mystics than to the fire and brimstone Protestants.
The matter of whether and to what degree the Jewish world was Hellenized before Jesus does not bear upon the different expectations of what the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven would bring about. The centrality of Zion expressed in Isaiah, the purification of the temple emphasized by the Essenes, point to an end of oppression and a punishment of sinners. The following language expresses the change:
Quoting Book of Enoch, translated by Laurence
Whatever status Jesus might have as a divinity, his death did not bring about the expectations of many. How to respond to this obviously led different groups to think about the tradition in different ways. Some of Paul's writing speak of the imminent arrival of the new world. He also gives an explanation of how the tradition needed to be replaced by the new life.
It is in that context that I am interested in Marcion who wanted to separate the creator of tradition from the gentle lord of the Savior. It can be noted that Maricon was clearly more 'Hellenized' than the followers of the Torah in Jerusalem. One does not have to purge all traces of 'Greekness' from those followers for the difference to be significant.
A similar condition applies to the earliest gnostic materials. Some are drawn from Greek ideas, some from other sources. There still is a tension between traditional life and visions of apocalypse. The desire to change a world of brutal power such as the Romans deployed remained a goal for Gnostics centuries later.
My impression of Marcion is pretty negative and I'm glad his ideas were declared heretical.
Severing the God of the OT from Jesus seems to me both anti-Jewish and historically/theologically dishonest. It's anti-Jewish for obvious reasons: It makes out the Jews to be worshipping a deficient God. It's historically/theologically dishonest because who was the Jewish Jesus praying to in the gospels? Whose words/commandments is he quoting in the gospels to espouse his theology to his followers? From a Christian perspective, I don't know how Christians are to understand their own spiritual history or understand who Jesus was without the guidance of the God of the OT and his prophets. The idea of the messiah is spoken by the Old Testament God to David on David's deathbed.
I share your view of negativity. There is a measure of his message in the anti-Semitic fury of Martin Luther.
The path of Marcion is murky and mostly told by his enemies. The narrative of Jesus being condemned by other Jews is one of the themes strongly developed by the Church Fathers and development of the Gospels. I wish that more light could be thrown on the first groups. The Fathers clearly had something to do with that darkness and the impending reign of intolerance.
This is simply an invalid inference. That there is not evidence available to confirm that a message has been transmitted faithfully is not evidence that a message hasn't been transmitted faithfully.
There is a difference between being unable to distinguish between what he actually said and what has been attributed to him and the claim that a message has or has not been transmitted faithfully.
Sure, no "true Jew" has ever thought God became man in the very same sense that no "true Scotsman" has ever told a lie.
Right, that was exactly my point. The answer to question one does not entail any specific answer to question two.
Do you mean the question of whether Peter wrote First or Second Peter and your answer that if he did then we have a direct account from someone who lived with Jesus for years, etc? If he did then the rest follows, but we do not know if he did.If we cannot answer the question then we do not know if what is said in those writings is what Jesus or Peter said. We do not know what Jesus said or taught.
(Wikipedia, "Authorship of the Petrine epistles", with note to twelve different scholars).
At best, suggestive, but certainly not reliable evidence of what Jesus and/or Peter or his other disciples believed and taught.
There have been messianic movements in Judaism. Amy-Jill Levine speculates that Jews may have been praying to or through Jesus. I don't think we'll ever know for sure. I can't even fully determine whether he kept kosher. For Paul it all hangs on the resurrection.
Yes, the anti-Judaism in the gospels is something all Christians must wrestle with.
Anti Judaism? Where?
Maybe the better term for the purposes of studying early text is 'supersessionism'. Documents like the Epistle to the Hebrews emphasize that the new message has gone beyond the old. That has stirred a lot of controversy over whether that means the covenant has changed from one "people" to another. That became a set doctrine later but it is difficult to confine the full purpose of the initial writing to that interpretation because the views being objected to by the writer were not held by all observant followers of the Torah. The original arguments between different witnesses (before the death) seem to have carried on after the death of Jesus in different ways. The more I find out about that side of it makes me more curious and less certain of what went down.
When the 'Christians' began to talk about themselves as a "people", that is when others could become others. Not a process unique to any time, as far as I can reckon.
Ah, so your response to Count Timothy had to do with Marcionism or Gnosticism? I think this could make for an interesting thread.
You're like the fish who asks: "water? what water?"
I don't think you know what you're talking about.
Consider reading your bible again but this time pretend that you're a Jew.
I'll say it again. You don't know what you're talking about.
No need to get mad.
I don't think Marcion was involved in the vivid imagination of different agents of creation as drawn out by many Gnostics. Both, however, have an inheritance from Greek tradition. Hesiod's Theogony is a genealogy of the gods. The world changes as a result of their generation. Timaeus tells a story about the Demiurge. Scholarship points in many directions as to how this Builder could be seen as demonic. The emphasis on self-knowledge is woven from many sources beyond the instruction given at Delphi. Adding an -ism to the term makes it more unitary than evidence permits.
In terms of the contrast I am making in my post, both of these points of views are pushed to the side in Mark 12:29:
Well, Jews have the word of their Scriptures.
I will not carry out my fierce anger,
nor will I devastate Ephraim again.
For I am God, and not a man
the Holy One among you.
Hosea 11:9
Hosea illustrates how different the views of the Kingdom of Heaven are between different Christian groups.
Paul quotes Hosea 9:21 in Letter to the Romans 9:24 in order to support the inclusion of Gentiles to the expected change. It is helpful to read that passage in the context of the whole chapter:
Quoting Hosea 2, NRSV
The emphasis upon changing the cosmos itself is also central to Paul's vision. But Paul is expecting the faithful to transform into new creatures altogether. Quite a leap higher than changing the covenant with Israel and creation as Hosea describes.
And both are very different roles from that of Jesus in the Gospel according to John where the Logos was co-present with God at creation.
This chapter also puts the kibosh on Paul's attempt to place 'faith above works' into the scriptural tradition. Israel has to stop being a whore for the change to happen.
And to follow up on the Marcion separation of the punitive and loving spirits, Hosea gives the lie to that proposition.
Edit to add: I forgot to mention that it was a talk given by Jason Staples that brought the two passages to my attention.