Was Jesus a great teacher?

[McCulloch]

Christianity's biggest strength is the teachings of Jesus. They're the very foundation of Christianity. Jesus was a great teacher and being a Christian myself, I see no one who has ever topped Him, nor have I found any of His teachings too difficult to defend.

Questions for debate:
Was Jesus a great teacher? Are all of his teachings easy to defend? Is there anything that he could have made clearer? Did he make mistakes? Did he leave out anything important? How could he have improved as a teacher?

[sleepyhead]

[Replying to post 1 by McCulloch]

Hello McCulloch,

MT 16:17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
MT 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
MT 16:19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven:
and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

The above has been used by religious institutions (mainly Catholic) to control their members.

All of the one sided arguments with the Pharisees have created anti semitism for the Jewish people.

[McCulloch]

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Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all? And He answered and said, Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. They said to Him, Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away? He said to them, Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.

The disciples said to Him, If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry. But He said to them, Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mothers womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it.

[/font]

What does the word adultery mean? Adultery is when a married person has sex with someone who is not his or her spouse. Thus, the only way that remarriage after divorce could be called adultery would be if one or more of the couple being married were still actually married to their former partner. Here Jesus clearly teaches that unless the divorce was granted for immorality ([font=Times New Roman] [/font]porneia meaning fornication or sexual immorality) then the marriage is still valid and any remarriage is adultery. Now, I and many Christians disagree with Jesus on this point. My own disagreement is not a difficulty, there are many things I disagree with Jesus about. However, the Christians who disagree with Jesus are more problematic. They often resort to discussions about forgiveness. "Yes," they say, "a divorce might have been a wrong thing to do, but Christianity is about forgiveness and Christians forgiven of a sinful divorce should be free to remarry." But I challenge anyone to cite a scripture that says a valid marriage is something that anyone should be forgiven for. If you divorce for the wrong reasons, it is wrong. God, according to my reading of the New Testament, will forgive you for such a sinful divorce. Then repent and go back to your legitimate spouse, is the message from Jesus. Right?

How many people do you know in your church (or any other church) who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven?

[JoeyKnothead]

From the OP:

Was Jesus a great teacher?

Meh.

Are all of his teachings easy to defend?

Some do find it quite easy to hate their parents.

Is there anything that he could have made clearer?

Genesis to Revelations.

Did he make mistakes?

Not leaving town a month before that fateful afternoon.

Did he leave out anything important?

'Parently the bit about homosexuality. Some say he's cool, some say he ain't, and you won't believe what a fuss that's got folks in, right up to this very day.

Then again, I don't expect a man of that time, who travelled with what was it, twelve other dudes, to say much in this regard.

How could he have improved as a teacher?

Speak English.

[Divine Insight]

Was Jesus a great teacher?


If you are asking for my opinion I would say that he was a horrible teacher. And this seems to be historically quite evident. Just look around at all the different sects and denominations of Christianity. If Jesus was a good teacher why would everyone be so thoroughly confused about what he supposedly taught?

Also, wasn't Jesus even telling his own disciples that they weren't understanding him? If his own disciples were confused and they were there in person, then why should anyone who only has hearsay rumors about him understand anything?


Are all of his teachings easy to defend?


I would not want to be in a position of trying to defend many of the teachings of Jesus. Although, to give Jesus the benefit of the doubt all we have is hearsay rumors about what he might have tried to teach. We don't really have anything from Jesus directly to even consider. So I'm not sure if it's fair to put the blame onto Jesus directly.


Is there anything that he could have made clearer?


Obviously. There wouldn't be something like 40,000 denominations of Christianity if things were clear.


Did he make mistakes?


If he had a message for all of mankind that was as important as this message was supposed to be then his main mistake was to not write down his message himself.

Why should anyone be expected to believe hearsay rumors about this man?



Did he leave out anything important?


Obviously he must have, otherwise what would be the point of the writings of Paul?

I've often argued for this. If Jesus completed his ministry and taught everything that needed to be taught then what would be the point of Paul?


How could he have improved as a teacher?


Obviously. Like I say, over 40,000 denominations of Christianity says it all.

Even the Catholic Popes don't always agree with each other concerning what Jesus was trying to say.

The fact, that Jews and Muslims weren't convinced that Jesus was the messiah also speaks volumes.

How could he be said to have been a good teacher if he wasn't even able to be convincing?

It seems that often times the miracles that Jesus was supposed to have performed (and of course supposedly having risen from the dead) is what is often pointed to as evidence of "divinity" of Jesus. NOT his teaching skills.

Moreover, can anyone cite anything that Jesus taught that hadn't already been taught before by other sages?

I have to ask why Buddha taught many of the same moral values that Jesus taught 500 years before Jesus was born. How could Buddha have known ahead of time what God was going to teach through Jesus?

It makes far more sense to me that Jesus got his material from Buddha. And when I think of this, then I'd have to point to Buddha as being a far greater teacher than Jesus because Buddha taught these same moral values with far less confusion and ambiguity than is contained in the rumors of Jesus.

If you want to best understand what Jesus was trying to teach you'd be far better off just going over to Buddhism and studying the teachings of Buddha. It's basically the same moral teachings with a lot less confusion.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Jesus left us no writings of any kind that were his own. So it's kind of hard to determine whether he was a good teacher or not.

[Divine Insight]

Jesus left us no writings of any kind that were his own. So it's kind of hard to determine whether he was a good teacher or not.

Not only that, but because of this fact, it's actually impossible for us to place any belief or faith in Jesus directly.

All we can possibly do at this point is place our belief and faith in people like Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, or maybe even Paul if you really want to stretch things.

Jesus didn't even give us the option to believe in him directly because he left no direct link to himself. All we have to believe in is hearsay rumors.

When people say, "I believe in Jesus", what they really mean is "I believe in hearsay rumors about some guy that might have been named Jesus".

[Reverend Richard]

[Replying to post 1 by McCulloch]

As others have already pointed out, it's difficult to know how good/bad Jesus' teachings were. For example, we don't really know who wrote the Gospels, and what we call Christianity was handed to us (primarily) by St. Paul who never even met Jesus. (And yes I am very familiar with Paul's (AKA Saul's) vision of Jesus when Paul was struck blind).

A few years ago I read a very interesting book called, "Jesus Beyond Christianity: The Classic Texts" by Barker and Gregg. It's a very thorough look at Jesus and his teachings, from the viewpoint of other religions including, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc. In this book, it is especially interesting to look at why Jews do not accept Christ as the messiah, and how Christians have twisted Old Testament scripture and "prophecy" to make it appear that he was. It becomes obvious pretty quickly why, at least for Jews, Jesus wasn't what was predicted.

[Goat]

[Replying to post 1 by McCulloch]

As others have already pointed out, it's difficult to know how good/bad Jesus' teachings were. For example, we don't really know who wrote the Gospels, and what we call Christianity was handed to us (primarily) by St. Paul who never even met Jesus. (And yes I am very familiar with Paul's (AKA Saul's) vision of Jesus when Paul was struck blind).

A few years ago I read a very interesting book called, "Jesus Beyond Christianity: The Classic Texts" by Barker and Gregg. It's a very thorough look at Jesus and his teachings, from the viewpoint of other religions including, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc. In this book, it is especially interesting to look at why Jews do not accept Christ as the messiah, and how Christians have twisted Old Testament scripture and "prophecy" to make it appear that he was. It becomes obvious pretty quickly why, at least for Jews, Jesus wasn't what was predicted.

I will totally agree with the viewpoint of the Jews, and also because the concept the Jewish faith has of what the messiah is supposed to be is totally at odds with the Messiah of the Christians.

Another interesting thing to look at is the various Christian writings from the 1st to the 4th century that pop up that are not cannon. A fragment of a 4th century Copic scripture contains has Jesus referring to his wife (which immediately had the Vatican proclaiming it was a forgery.)


All indications is that it was a genuine 4th Century writing though.

[Philbert]

I dunno, I suspect most will wish Jesus (or words by others attributed to Jesus) taught only the particular slice of Christianity they personally find the most appealing. I'm no different in that regard.

My first instinct is to suggest all the unprovable ideological assertions about god, Jesus's divinity, heaven and hell etc were left out, as they seem big distractions from a more important and useful message regarding the experience of love.

But, that said, it's rather difficult to argue with a 2,000 year old track record of dominating western culture. You know, if Christianity was a life form, it could be said to be surviving quite successfully in it's environment, in it's current form.

The main contribution of Jesus may have been to personalize an important subject, make it accessible to regular people, and create a compelling dramatic storyline which helped propel that subject forward in time.

Consider the cover of a book. Technically the book cover adds nothing to the value of the book's contents, but it's nonetheless essential in getting us to pick the book up off the shelf and consider reading it.

Perhaps Jesus is the cover of this book?