Why did Jesus not write for us?

[marco]

We know Muhammad was illiterate which makes his production of the Koran close to miraculous. Jesus scribbled in the dust but does not seem to have occupied himself with writing things down. Why?

Here we debate what this or that means; we debate the Trinity; we wonder about the truth of Christ's nativity and resurrection; we question his message, as delivered by hearsay. An important group of people, those of the Jewish faith, has been alienated. Did Christ intend this? Did he want Rome to rise and propagate his message?


All these questions are answered in a book called The Annals of Christ, by Jesus Christ. Unfortunately we don't have it. Can there be good reasons why Christ left no written records?

[Tcg]

We know Muhammad was illiterate which makes his production of the Koran close to miraculous. Jesus scribbled in the dust but does not seem to have occupied himself with writing things down. Why?

Here we debate what this or that means; we debate the Trinity; we wonder about the truth of Christ's nativity and resurrection; we question his message, as delivered by hearsay. An important group of people, those of the Jewish faith, has been alienated. Did Christ intend this? Did he want Rome to rise and propagate his message?


All these questions are answered in a book called The Annals of Christ, by Jesus Christ. Unfortunately we don't have it. Can there be good reasons why Christ left no written records?

To whom would he have written?

To us of course, if he cared about an accurate message.

His disciples? They were with him; from Rabbinic parallels it is quite plausible they took notes.

Fishermen took notes? On what and with what did they write?

To himself, like a journal? Journal writing is, if not unattested, so completely rare of the ancient world that the expectation only exposes historical ignorance.

Right, but fishermen taking notes was common. Historical ignorance indeed.

The question is pedantic and can be equally asked of Socrates and Pyrrho. Teachers had disciples; sometimes writing was necessary, but it was not preferred.

Unless it was fishermen taking notes.


Tcg

[Willum]

[Replying to post 51 by liamconnor]

The question is pedantic and can be equally asked of Socrates and Pyrrho. Teachers had disciples; sometimes writing was necessary, but it was not preferred.

Except of course, that Socrates and Pyrrho did not do magic tricks, or have a fairy-tale origin.
Neither does anyone have any reason to doubt their existence.

We don't actually know if Pyrrho was a real person either. He may have been a construct or idealization. He may have written something, but his works are hardly Earth-shattering, with any unreasonable claims.
We find that Socrates works were destroyed for political reasons, and his students' works were not.

We have no such reason or claim to a man people suspect of being false because of fairy-tale-like origins, no works, no documentation of miracles by outside sources, and so on.

For example, Jesus resurrected Lazarus, this should have spread far and wide - instead it is only mentioned in the Bible as a plot element.

So there is no analogy between the three.
Pyrrho and Socrates starting assumption is that they are men who made reasonable claims.
Jesus starting assumption is that he is a magical thing with magical claims.

Well, and, there you are.

[marco]

He told of something tiny by its nature grown unnaturally into something it should NOT have been able to achieve as a metaphor for GOD's kingdom which does no disservice in the least to the growing abilities of actual mustard seeds.

I understand the parable, Ted, and I wasn't acting as defenece lawyer for all offended mustard trees. It is widely known that in his botanical claims Christ erred somewhat - no problem in a sonnet by Keats (Cortez in Chapma's Homer) or a play by Shakespeare (cannon in Macbeth) but divinities are expected to set a botanical example as well as a moral one. Perhaps Christ knew his limitations and kept to his scriptural role, which is maybe why he did not risk writing things down where errors could not be explained away as misquotes or rhetorical hyperbole. Go well.

[marco]

To whom would he have written? His disciples? They were with him; from Rabbinic parallels it is quite plausible they took notes.

To whom did Cicero write his speeches and his treatises on friendship and old age? We are richer for having them.

The question is pedantic and can be equally asked of Socrates and Pyrrho. Teachers had disciples; sometimes writing was necessary, but it was not preferred.

That's a good point. Socrates owes his fame to his pupils, notably Plato. Unlike Christ he probably thought that what he was divulging was ephemeral; he saw himself not as the son of a god, but the most foolish among fools. One can see why he would not have written. Pyrrho too comes to life through his pupils, in his case Timon principally. We know of ancient figures through references in other texts and lots of interesting material is lost to us: the poems of Julius Caesar for instance or the works of the revered poet Ennius who reveals himself to us only in fragments.


So yes, we could have had the lost works of Jesus too. I think we would be grateful even for fragments of Truth, Way and Life. Instead we have an artist's impression of the man. For some that's enough; for those who want genuinely to examine what he was and who he was, his own script would have been invaluable.


Forgive my pedantry in suggesting this. Go well.

[marco]

Bible truths are not clear to everyone, on that we can agree. What we don't agree on, is your point that the perceived ambiguity is not what Christ would have wanted, and that if he had written the gospels himself they would be unambiguous for every reader.

How convenient that "Bible truths are not clear to everyone." I assume the Pontiff in Rome has the same view and on the rare occasion of his using infallibility, only one person is given the understanding of some hard point.

Of course if the man on the street is able to confound the theologian in understanding theology then this is a minor miracle. The danger of holding this select view is that we place ourselves in the hands of those who claim to have favoured understanding. They might well be the whited sepulchres Christ denounced.

[marco]

There is no clarity here, there are differing opinions on what is required for salvation.

There was no guarantee that Christ's Saturday sermon would be in tune with his Monday morning parable. This is partly due to the editing of his biographers, their misquoting or the twisting of conversational strands by the time the writer came to hear of an event. For example: he made Lazarus see sense; he made Lazarus see; he made Lazarus see the light of day; he made Lazarus see daylight again; he raised Lazarus to life.


And if instead we had: "Dear readers, I am the son of God and here is my message. Listen carefully...." we could stop debating what his reporters meant and investigate Truth itself.

[Tcg]

And if instead we had: "Dear readers, I am the son of God and here is my message. Listen carefully...." we could stop debating what his reporters meant and investigate Truth itself.

Imagine the difference that would make! Rather than, the Synoptics say this... John says that... Paul disagrees... James has a different view. We hear of a rule to let scripture interpret scripture, but who do we start with? Do we let Paul interpret the Synoptics or let John interpret Paul? Perhaps James with his meager input should be the standard.

How much easier it would be if we could simply say, in the first and only book of Jesus, Jesus wrote...


Tcg

[bjs]

Certainly that's what endless sermonizing would have us believe, mostly from preachers and churches whose primary interest is pulling in as many rubes as possible.

M, I am genuinely surprised by this level of cynicism. Do you actually think that most Christian preachers do not believe their own message and are only trying to pull as many people in as possible? Do you honestly believe that those who listen are rubes, as opposed to people searching for truth? Even if you ultimately disagree with them, I did not expect this level of cynicism from you.

But try to imagine that you're new to this 'Jesus' guy and just reading the gospels for the first time, in the order they were written (Mark, Matthew, Luke and John) or in the order they're found in the bible. First you're reading Mark's...

If we are taking things in chronological order then shouldnt we imagine reading Pauls letters first, and then getting to the Gospels? First century Christians would have started with First Thessalonians, and then Galatians, and then First Corinthians and Philippians.

We would read, For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10)

We would read, Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, The righteous will live by faith. (Galatians 3:11)

It seems particularly appropriate to this conversation to remember that we would read in Galatians 3:3, Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain you goal by human effort?

After we read several of Pauls letters, but before we read any of the Gospels, we would also read how James wrote, Faith without deeds is dead. (James 2:26). So the idea that it is only belief and how we live doesnt matter is also rejected before we even get to the Gospels.

Also in James 2:13 we read that, Mercy triumphs over judgement!

If the Gospels of Luke and Mark were written by the men whose names they bear (this is by no means certain, but it is the most likely conclusion), then both of these men were heavily influenced by Paul. They were both traveling companions of Paul at different times, and they approach the story of Jesus through the eyes of Paul.

IF YOU IGNORE EVERYTHING ELSE IN THIS POST, READ THIS PART:
The long and the short of it is this:
If we read only part of the New Testament then we will get an uneven picture. These books were not written in a vacuum. They were written with an understanding of what people already knew and what had already been written. Paul wrote knowing that people had heard about Jesus. Matthew, Mark and Luke wrote knowing that people had read/heard Pauls letters. John wrote knowing that people had read/heard the other Gospels. No one book can give us a complete picture of Jesus. It all fits together, or it all falls apart

[bjs]

[Replying to post 30 by JJ50]


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[Tcg]

If we read only part of the New Testament then we will get an uneven picture.

Actually, if we read all of the New Testament, we get a very uneven picture as has been demonstrated on this thread. If we read only the Synoptics, for instance, we might stand a chance of getting an even picture. Even then, we'd need to ignore many differences.


Tcg