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?

[ttruscott]

I see no reason to expect a wandering Jewish preacher from thousands of years ago to leave written records of his preachings.

To every objection there be a clever reply. What a work of art is man!

Cool...

If he had esoteric information it seems absurd he did not communicate it in a form beyond the oral. And if he was capable of raising Lazarus, his words could have been written ineradicably on buildings through the known world. But that might have been too ostentatious for a poor preacher.

BUT: in Jesus words: Luke 16:31 "He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'" The book they have now is enough, more will have no better effect. Blaming Jesus for the ignorance of men is an acceptable anti-Christian ploy.

[JehovahsWitness]

If it is felt that the gospels are crystal clear ...then what we have would suffice to some extent.

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.

But yes, you have indeed clearly stated your case, thanks.


JW

[ttruscott]

My point is that Christ would presumably have the ability to foresee difficulties in interpretation, would avoid ambiguities and would carefully explain the question of his being worshipped as God.

Of course. But the Bible was not to expound all GOD's secrets (or it is badly done) but to turn HIS sinful people back to HIM so HE could quiet their questions according to their fears and hopes. It is a sign post, pointing our way to HIM...not a full and exacting treatise on the truth of reality.

Oft repeated and still true: Christians are to live by faith, not sight.

[marco]

But you know as well as I that Christian doctrine contends that the thinking of worldly man is corrupted by sinfulness and is not to be trusted. If they can reject the GOD who created the physical universe before their eyes, then what is a Book of Truth to them?

I have a more sympathetic view of those who struggle with philosophical, scientific and theological issues. People at the cutting edge of research spend vast quantities of time trying to get things right. I am not preoccupied with man's sinfulness.

A book written by Jesus Christ would certainly attract attention and scrupulous examination. I am contending that IF Christ were God's emissary, his writing would inevitably illustrate this. The writing of, say, Matthew does no such thing.

On the other hand if he was an imposter, or self-deceived, that would be evident too. Our senses become dim by too many random miracles.

[ttruscott]

Christ's written statement of who, what and why would clarify things. If his paragraphs continued to be about mustard seeds growing to the tallest trees we could make a better assessment of Christ. And perhaps that is why he wrote nothing down.

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.

Luke 13:18 Then Jesus asked, What is the kingdom of God like? To what can I compare it? 19 It is like a mustard seed (the sinful elect, good seed) that a man (the Son of Man) tossed (sowed) into his garden (the world). It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air nested in its branches. (...with thanks to the parable of the good seed, Matt 13 in two parts, for its help in understanding this saying.) Surely the words like and compare v18 indicate a metaphor, a figure of speech in which a word or phrase (mustard seed growing into tree) is applied to an object (GOD's kingdom) or action to which it is not literally applicable, not a possible reality...

[ttruscott]

.

If they can reject the GOD who created the physical universe before their eyes, then what is a Book of Truth to them?

Which of the thousands of proposed 'gods' did the creating? And, how can that be determined?

It was YHWH the Living GOD who did the creating and the only way I know that that truth can be determined by us sinners on earth is if HE again displays HIS glory and tells us who HE is and what HE has done, either individually or globally.

I suspect the global revelation will next occur at the Great White Throne judgement which all will see and hopefully soon. Until then we live in hope, holding our scepticism in abeyance to be proved empty later, until we die.

[Tcg]

Starting with, what does it actually take to get to heaven. Neither he nor his billions of followers have yet provided a clear answer. You'd think that'd be a priority.

Seems to me he and his immediate followers answered quite clearly what kind of love leads to salvation:

• Mark 10:17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. Good teacher, he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
  
  18 Why do you call me good?Jesus answered. No one is good"except God alone.19You know the commandments: You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.
  
  20Teacher, he declared, all these I have kept since I was a boy.
  
  21Jesus looked at him and loved him. One thing you lack,he said. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.
  
  
  Acts 2:44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Obviously most professing followers of Christ don't like that message one little bit, but considering how frequently it is emphasized again and again throughout the gospels there's really not a lot of room for misunderstanding or debate there; "those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples" (Luke 14:33).

In John 3:16 we find this:

• "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Nothing required here but belief.


In Ephesians 2:8-9 we read:

• "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith"and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast."

No works required here. Nothing but faith which is a gift from God.


In Romans 10:9-10 we find this opinion:

• "If you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved."

In this version, both belief and profession of faith are required.

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


Tcg

[Mithrae]

Starting with, what does it actually take to get to heaven. Neither he nor his billions of followers have yet provided a clear answer. You'd think that'd be a priority.

Seems to me he and his immediate followers answered quite clearly what kind of love leads to salvation: . . . .

Obviously most professing followers of Christ don't like that message one little bit, but considering how frequently it is emphasized again and again throughout the gospels there's really not a lot of room for misunderstanding or debate there; "those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples" (Luke 14:33).

In John 3:16 we find this:

• "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Nothing required here but belief.

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. 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 passage that to have eternal life you should not only obey the commandments against harming one another, but go above and beyond and give everything to the poor; you're reading Matthew's and Luke's passages saying all of the same and much more:

• Matthew 25:41 "Depart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food; I was thirsty and you gave me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take me in, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. . . . 45 Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me."
  
  Matthew 7:21 Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? 23 And then I will declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!

Then you come to John. Are you suddenly going to decide that the message here is you just need to say "Lord, Lord" and you're saved? That 'believing in' Jesus simply means reciting a profession of faith in some abstract theological proposition? Or does believing in Jesus mean accepting what he taught? There's not really much ambiguity there either, except in the minds of those determined to avoid what he taught, and even the fourth gospel is careful to explicitly disabuse those folk of their fantasies:
John 14:15 "If you love me, keep my commandments. . . . 21 He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me."

In Ephesians 2:8-9 we read: . . . .

In Romans 10:9-10 we find this opinion:

We could debate Paul's theology one way or the other, but what's the point? Paul is neither Jesus nor one of Jesus' immediate followers.

Have you ever seen someone say that Paul 'wrote most of the New Testament' or something along those lines? In fact even counting the pseudo-Pauline content, by number of 'books' he wrote less than half of the total and by actual length of content less than a quarter, far less than the gospels: He wasn't even the single biggest contributor, exceeded by Luke/Acts. Paul looms large in folks' imagination, perhaps, because they want him to be there overshadowing the hard teachings of Jesus.

Some four billion people - over half the world's population - are either Christians or Muslims who supposedly consider Jesus both Messiah and a prophet of God. But I wonder how many of them even know that Jesus taught giving everything to the poor as the path to eternal life; never mind actually obeying! Ask people what Jesus taught and they'll say "Love one another," but nothing about the radical kind of love he commanded. It almost borders on the miraculous what a well-kept secret it is, and how popular the exact opposite - "Lord, Lord" teachings and even wealth and prosperity gospels - have become. Interestingly, according to the gospel authors Jesus himself predicted both that his words would last forever, but that very few would actually follow the narrow way he was teaching.

[tam]

[Replying to post 49 by Mithrae]

Mithrae makes a good point, because part of believing in someone (not just in their existence)... is believing and doing what they say. Hence, Christ asked, "Why do you call me Lord, but do not do what I say?"


**

As to the specific example about giving to the poor: one must also take into consideration the context on the 'sell your possessions and give to the poor.' Because we can know for a fact that this was not required of all His disciples: Lazarus, Martha and Mary had a house and belongings, as did other disciples.


The words given to the rich young man were for him specifically, in response to his question. He is the one who pushed to know what he still lacked, even after Christ had already told him what he needed to do in order to inherit eternal life. Only then did Christ tell him,

"If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."


Christ showed the young man where he lacked simply by asking him to do the one thing that the young man was not going to be willing to do. Not everyone is going to be lacking in the exact same area; so not everyone is going to need that exact lesson.



Peace again to you both,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[liamconnor]

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

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.

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.