Was Jesus mad?

[marco]

CS Lewis famously suggested that we have three choices: Jesus was a lunatic, a liar or God. He thought the best answer was the third. He hardly considers the possibility that Jesus was unstable. Madmen don't compose beautiful speeches. But of course they can, and have done, as some of our poets have demonstrated from their asylums.

Was he a liar? One would ask why; what did he have to gain from lying? But if he sought adulation, like a pop star, then his speeches were pop songs, designed to lure the masses by promises of glory.

Was he God? From his own words it seems absurd to suppose so. His father was in heaven and he couldn't simultaneously be father and son. But man has managed to overcome that problem with the Trinity theory.

Lewis thinks we cannot have the possibility he was a great preacher - for then he was a liar. But there's a possibility that Jesus was real enough, but moulded into a divinity by his eulogisers, the evangelists.

It would seem that if we do have only the three options presented by Lewis, and we reject the absurdity that Jesus was his dad, and refuse to believe the holy man was a liar, then we find he was mad.

So the question is: Was Jesus mad?

[marco]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]


It seems harsh to call the nice preacher of the New Testament a madman. But there is a suggestion his family thought so. And if we can get such a suggestion coming through in what is essential a continued hymn to Christ, then we must pause for thought.

Today if somebody said he had conversations with the devil in a desert, could put evil spirits into pigs and he came from another world and he existed thousands of years ago we would without hesitation call him insane.

What redeems the Redeemer, then?

[SallyF]

Jewish pig-keepers …?

Demons …?

Magic casting out of demons …?

Causing the death of 2,000 pigs would land you in court these days.

Claiming to be the "Son of God" as an excuse would land you in the mental health facility.




The Gadarene swine were someone's property and livelihood.

(Assuming the story isn't just the fabrication of propagandists … and maybe "God" really wanted it in "scripture".)

The people who owned the pigs were pretty ticked and may well have thought this Jesus character was just an arrogant nut job …

What with him claiming his mum was still a virgin, and his father was the local deity Jehovah, and he was going to take the throne of Israel from the Herods, and summon legions of angels to overthrow the Roman Empire …

You know, crazy.

We wouldn't buy it these days.

Very few people would have bought it back then either … I very strongly suggest.

The possibly fictional Jesus character achieved NOTHING that a messiah was supposed to achieve for his own people, in his own time.

If he existed …

His own family and many/most/nearly all of his contemporaries may have thought him mad.

The propaganda that was published long AFTER he went to visit the proto-Mormons, has tidied up and put spin on his failure and possible delusions of grandeur.

Some call it "scripture".

But it may be blandishment for a madman.

We may never know.

But we all have our imaginations …!

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

Jesus never claimed to be God. If the bible narrative is to be believed he claimed to be God's son and confirmed this calim when Peter identified him as such.

As for the OP: Was Jesus mad?

• None of us where present to assess his mental state, what we can do here is look at what we have and try to assess what statements imply. His rhetoric was reasonable and logical, his behaviour balanced, he took care of himself physically, repecting his body's need to rest and sleep. He displayed empathy and compassion, respected the social norms of his day and is not recorded as suffering from paranoia or hallucinations.

Given the above, no, I personally don't see the Jesus of the gospels as being depicted as a madman (suffering from mental illness).

"As a child, I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of Jesus the Nazarene." -


Albert Einstein, German-born scientist

JW

[SallyF]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

Jesus never claimed to be God. If the bible narrative is to be believed he claimed to be Gods son and confirmed this when Peter identified him as such.

As for the OP: Was Jesus mad?

None of us where present to assess his mental state, all we can do is assess the bible depiction of him and come to a reasonable conclusion. Personally no, I don't see the Jesus of the gospels as being depicted as a madman.



JW

The "gospels" - as we have determined elsewhere - fit definitions of propaganda.

We have also failed to determine that "God" had anything to do with so much as a verse of them.

This human-written propaganda is hardly likely to depict their Divine Leader as a madman.

It would completely defeat the purpose of the propaganda.

Given the absence of independent verification for a single incident in the "gospels", Member Marco and others of us, hypothesise what MAY be behind the

conversations with the devil in a desert, could put evil spirits into pigs and he came from another world and he existed thousands of years ago

Or perhaps we could just filter out the bits we don't like, and parrot the beliefs of the organisations we belong to, and call it "faith" in a very severe tone, and howl and spit if anyone challenges us.

That's just a WHOLE lot easier that trying to figure out if there IS any evidence …

And what you're going to actually admit out loud if you just can't find any.

[Tcg]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

Lewis worded it as, "Lunatic, Liar, or Lord." It is astonishing that someone as creative as Lewis couldn't imagine any other options. A fourth would be that Jesus was a Legend.

This doesn't necessitate that one except that Jesus didn't exist, but simply that the stories told abut him long after his death aren't factual, at least not from a literal standpoint.

Jesus of course might have been a lunatic. He also may have just been another apocalyptic preacher whose claims didn't pan out. It could be that his followers then rewrote his story to turn his failure into a supposed victory.

After he failed to reform Judaism, they may have decided to create a new religion based on the legend they spun.


Tcg

[marco]

None of us were present to assess his mental state, what we can do here is look at what we have and try to assess what statements imply. His rhetoric was reasonable and logical, his behaviour balanced, he took care of himself physically, repecting his body's need to rest and sleep. He displayed empathy and compassion, respected the social norms of his day and is not recorded as suffering from paranoia or hallucinations.

This submission doesn't quite exonerate the man from the charge of mental instability. As I said, distinguished artists and writers were mad but they produced astonishing work. Christ's rhetoric involved telling people to "hate their parents and children." We can struggle to put a nice meaning on this.
He was desperate to know what the multitude thought of him and suggested Peter got his answer supernaturally. That isn't normal. He thought he was going into the sky to "prepare a mansion for his friends" and he would come back after being executed. Not quite normal. Asked by the civil authorities if he had anything to say in his defence, he suggested swarms of angels might come, if he called them. Rather unusual defence. As for caring for his needs - he spent 40 days in the desert doing the opposite and allegedly talking to Satan. That's not normal. And his advice was for people to ignore clothes since God clothes birds.
This might all have been made up, but if so we don't know anything about Jesus.

"As a child, I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of Jesus the Nazarene." - Albert Einstein, German-born scientist

There's no disputing that Jesus bursts from the pages. But so too does Rasputin, who was unhinged and also thought he was touched by God. Einstein said, just before he died, the tales in the Bible are childish. Does this count as scientific opinion too?

"the word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish." Accept Einstein on Monday and you accept him on Tuesday.

So numinous or luminous, Jesus may have been deceived about his important mission. His family might have told us had they been allowed to speak.

[JehovahsWitness]

He was desperate to know what the multitude thought of him ... That isn't normal.

Are you claiming that a persons seeking to know what others thinks about them (there is nothing in the text to support he was "desperate" ) is a symptom of mental illness?

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 7 by marco]

As for Jesus supernatural claims you are right these were not "normal"* but then neither is atheism or homosexuality. That which departs from the majority is not by definition evidence of mental dysfunction. If it was we would have all our genius committed.


Are you suggesting that which is not normal is mental?

* NORMAL

conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.

[marco]

Are you claiming that a persons seeking to know what others thinks about them (there is nothing in the text to support he was "desperate" ) is a symptom of mental illness?

I can take it that the remaining points in Christ's disfavour are unanswerable? You ask whether there is anything odd in somebody saying: "Who do people say I am?" When a baker wants to know what people think of him, he might well ask that question, in that way. It's the implied "other worldly", "alien visitor" undercurrent that hints at a certain mental malaise.

"I think you're a god, or at least the son of God."
"Well done! Correct answer. You got that supernaturally."

Quite so. All normal stuff. Perhaps I should recant.