Why did Christ not indicate advances?

[marco]

A super-intelligent being walks around but doesn't correct misconceptions or scientific untruths. He sees lepers but doesn't suggest any cure, except prayer. He left it to other clever people to advance human knowledge.


Was he educated in anything but Scripture?

Did he know the Earth orbits the sun, and was he aware that imparting this simple fact would have saved lives?

Or was he just a preacher, rumoured to have healing powers?

[Elijah John]

[Replying to rikuoamero]

It's about whether or not one gives Jesus the benefit of the doubt. I do, his supporters do, his detractors don't. Seems his detractors want to see the worst in him.

Yes, I believe Jesus used hyperbole. But I don't see him as completely peaceful. He was harsh to hypocrites, such as some Pharisees of his day. He was subversive, and a revolutionary. By all accounts, he knocked over the tables in the Temple, and that got him crucified, for disturbing the Roman peace.

Some, like Reza Aslan make a good case that Jesus wanted to overthrow the Roman occupiers by whatever means necessary, and had more sympathy for the Zealots than we were taught to believe.

So to give Jesus the benefit of the doubt, is not to suggest he was all sweetness and light, a flower child.

[Talishi]

I disagree, fictional characters are rarely if ever as influential as real people and even if that were the case, the overwhelming consensus of historians is that Jesus was a historical figure.

Jesus was a historical figure in the sense that there was a teacher by that name who was executed for sedition against Rome. He was not a historical figure in the sense of being a messiah or god-man.

[JehovahsWitness]

Jesus was a historical figure in the sense that there was a teacher by that name who was executed for sedition against Rome. He was not a historical figure in the sense of being a messiah or god-man.

The expression doesn't exist in "senses". The expression "historical figure" only has one sense "a famous person in history". Jesus either existed or he did not, he did not exist a little bit any more than one can be a little bit dead or slightly pregnant.



Read the article
https://www.jw.org/en/publications/maga ... 6-october/

[Willum]

[Replying to Elijah John]

Hardly, then as now, destruction of property is not grounds for execution.

Blasphemy is very frequently a motive for execution. As Jesus committed this when he advocated that the Pharisee and Sadducee of his time merely touch the coins Tiberius was asking for tribute.

And Jesus was (allegedly) doing more than that - he was saying they should pay homage to the son of the God Augustus, in proxy to the god Jove.

There is no reason to suspect Jesus even existed, as far as I can tell. A book, a series of self-re-enforcing likely forgeries... I used to believe there may have been a guy who walked around say "pay Roman taxes" but I see no reason to even suspect this any longer.

All I see is the Romans progressively improving religion, until it fooled people into fooling others. It got good enough that it took on a life of it's own. The Dark Ages and the ignorance it perpetrated - did the rest.

[Talishi]

The expression doesn't exist in "senses". The expression "historical figure" only has one sense "a famous person in history". Jesus either existed or he did not, he did not exist a little bit any more than one can be a little bit dead or slightly pregnant.

There were many Jesoi. The white blue-eyed Jesus depicted by Hollywood didn't exist. A brown curly-haired Jesus from the sandy Levant did exist. The Jesus who cured people of being mute by casting out demons didn't exist. The Jesus who affirmed he was the messiah and was crucified for defying the rule of Rome did exist. The Jesus who lay dead in a tomb for three days and rose again did not exist.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 25 by Talishi]

Point of order - the blue-eyed Jesus thing is real.
When artists cast about for what Jesus looked like, not having him around to emulate - they chose the god they had sculptures of - Zeus. No conspiracy, just convenience. That is why Jesus is depicted like a Greek.

If it was 300AD and you didn't know what Jesus looked like, you'd pick the closest thing you knew.

V/R

[marco]

Jesus had a demon-based theory of disease, rather than a bacteria-based or genetic-based theory. He affirmed the Great Flood. He thought a mustard seed was smaller than all other seeds and grew to become greater than all other shrubs. He didn't know what season fig trees bore fruit. He thought the Day of the Lord would occur before 800 AUC. He thought John the Baptist was the reincarnation of Elijah and taught others so.

Yes, the poor soul got a lot of things wrong. His placing a legion of devils into pigs and then destroying the entire herd must have met with applause from their owner. Why did he not place them in Judas or in some Pharisees?

I often wonder what his school report card looked like but the Evangelists showed no interest in the personal details of the great man.

[marco]

After having studied this religion in great detail for several decades I have concluded that Jesus was most likely nothing more than a preacher who didn't know anymore than anyone else from his time period. He most certainly wasn't the virgin born son of the creator of this universe.

It would appear so. A happy combination of circumstances fanned the flames and raised his nice sayings to the words of a divinity. For that you simply require millions of devotees; and for them you need a sharp sword, a rack or a fire.

[marco]

Those "hard sayings" of Jesus are admittedly very disturbing to me and I think to many other thinking people, even some other Christians The only way I personally come to terms with them is by seeing Jesus as a poet in addition to being a preacher. He was likely using hyperbole...exageration to make a point.

It is always risky to take some obviously nasty statement and write it off as metaphor. It would be irresponsible to speak thus even metaphorically for if one can commit adultery in one's heart one must take responsibility for an obvious meaning attached to one's words. It is a poor preacher who would say: "I didn't mean it that way."

[marco]

.

Another strong possibility, EJ, is that many of the words attributed to Jesus were not his at all, but were supplied by later people promoting their own agenda.

It is unfortunate that there are no existing documents from Jesus himself.

And that possibility, were it true, would cause the entire temple of Christ's teaching to collapse. When one introduces the possibility that some verses are fake it is impossible then to say what is good and what is bad. The gospel, like the parson's egg, would be good in parts - and still rotten.