Would anyone have listened to Jesus

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Elijah John
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Would anyone have listened to Jesus

Post #1

Post by Elijah John »

If the real, historical Jesus in the Monotheistic culture of first century Judaism had actually gone around claiming to be YHVH God in the flesh, would anyone have believed him and listened to anything he had to say?

Or is it more likely they would have dismissed him as insane?
My theological positions:

-God created us in His image, not the other way around.
-The Bible is redeemed by it's good parts.
-Pure monotheism, simple repentance.
-YHVH is LORD
-The real Jesus is not God, the real YHVH is not a monster.
-Eternal life is a gift from the Living God.
-Keep the Commandments, keep your salvation.
-I have accepted YHVH as my Heavenly Father, LORD and Savior.

I am inspired by Jesus to worship none but YHVH, and to serve only Him.

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Divine Insight
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Re: Would anyone have listened to Jesus

Post #2

Post by Divine Insight »

Elijah John wrote: If the real, historical Jesus in the Monotheistic culture of first century Judaism had actually gone around claiming to be YHVH God in the flesh, would anyone have believed him and listened to anything he had to say?

Or is it more likely they would have dismissed him as insane?
I doubt that it worked that way.

From my understanding the culture was expecting a messiah to come. There were many cultural rumors of a coming messiah and from what I understand there were also many claims being made by various people that they were the messiah.

Don't forget John the Baptist was preaching of the coming of a messiah.

Secondly, Jesus didn't start out by proclaiming that he was the messiah. In fact, what appears to have happened to me is that Jesus started out teaching ideas from Mahayana Buddhism and a mystical idea of YHVH. When Jesus said that he and the Father are one he was no doubt referring to the pantheistic idea of YHVH which was not an uncommon notion of Jews at that time.

Even the Gospels have Jesus defending this by saying, "It is not written in your law that ye are gods?" So he wasn't supporting that he was the 'only begotten son of Yahweh', but rather he was supporting the pantheistic idea that we are all a manifestation of God. He's not the only one who can claim to be "One with the Father".

It was only have much misunderstanding of what Jesus was trying to teach that his very own disciples started to ask if Jesus himself was the messiah? And from I can tell from the writings Jesus' answer was that they simply should not tell anyone of this until after he's gone. That hardly suggests that he had made the claim, or even agreed with it.

So the Christian version of Jesus appears to me to be a gross misunderstanding of what Jesus himself was trying to teach.

I don't believe Jesus was going around claiming to anyone that he was YHVH in the flesh.

In fact, the rumors of Jesus having been born of a virgin who was impregnated by YHVH never came from Jesus. Those rumors sprung up long after Jesus was dead. Along with the rumors of the three wise men coming to worship him as King.

In fact, once those rumors grew and became the Gospels it's hard to know what the original Jesus ever might have claimed or taught.

Don't forget the Gospels have YHVH himself proclaiming from the clouds that Jesus was his Son.

And then there's the whole resurrection story and the supposed ascension of Jesus to heaven.

Keep in mind that the vast majority of "believers" never saw hide nor hair of Jesus. What they are going by is the Gospel rumors, not by any direct encounter with Jesus.

You either believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, and that YHVH proclaimed Jesus to be his Son or you don't. If you don't believe those tales, then there really isn't much sense in even talking about Jesus at all. And especially if you don't believe in the resurrection and ascension of Jesus why even bother to give the rumors of Jesus any credence at all?

There is not such thing as a spiritual Jesus if you toss out the virgin birth, YHVH proclaiming Jesus to be his son from the clouds, and Jesus being raised from the dead and ascending to heaven. Take all that away and all you have left is a grossly misunderstood spiritual philosopher. And there were certainly thousands of those.

The only things that makes Jesus special are the virgin birth, YHVH proclaiming Jesus to be his Son, and the resurrection and ascension. Take those away and he wasn't much different from someone like Mahatma Gandhi.
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Willum
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Re: Would anyone have listened to Jesus

Post #3

Post by Willum »

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]
Don't forget John the Baptist was preaching of the coming of a messiah.
Investigation into who John the Baptist was, if he existed, is only that he was another interloper, who the Jews of the time had no respect for.

Having two charlatans conspire together should not be construed as a prophecy.

They wouldn't have listened to John, who wore camel's hair, nor would they pay mind to someone who couldn't demonstrate his lineage was anything other than unhallowed.

And, even if we believe the NT, this is what history bears out.

The Jews did not worship him. The Gentiles did. If anyone can explain how the savior of the Jewish people is not venerated by the Jewish people, but by aliens, well they can probably convert me.

The Jews were there. They saw all miracles associated with his birth, and documented and revered none of them.

Instead they recorded his father a a Roman soldier.

Who would you believe? The account of the Jews, who, may or may not have been describing Jesus, or the account of a people with vested interests, 300 years later?

If Jesus existed, most certainly the people of Jerusalem would have listened to him. We find there are many quacks and kooks recorded in history that were listened to.

https://infidels.org/library/modern/ric ... kooks.html

Odd that there are no recorded works of this Jesus until 300 years later, and written 2,500 miles away. All others being questionable or destroyed, excuse me, allegedly destroyed.

jgh7

Post #4

Post by jgh7 »

Well I mean it all depends on the miracles. He did some pretty crazy miracles in the bible.

Those can be pretty convincing.

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Provoker
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Re: Would anyone have listened to Jesus

Post #5

Post by Provoker »

Elijah John wrote: If the real, historical Jesus in the Monotheistic culture of first century Judaism had actually gone around claiming to be YHVH God in the flesh, would anyone have believed him and listened to anything he had to say?

Or is it more likely they would have dismissed him as insane?
Hello EJ:
The answer to every question requires that we understand God's everlasting gospel promise that a great nation of the faithful, will inherit everlasting possession of a well defined specific piece of land, and will bless all the nations with peace on earth, good will toward men.
The great nation became a kingdom and fell without achieving everlasting life.
Those with faith in God's gospel began to watch for an anointed one to resurrect the fallen kingdom, ascend the throne, and bring peace on earth.
Those who were committed to the fulfillment of God's gospel, were a threat to Rome because Rome was in possession of the land of God's gospel. Rome tricked the faithful Jews into believing that Herod's kingdom was the kingdom they had been waiting for, and they backslid.
Jesus began preaching God's gospel of the coming kingdom, to the backslidden Jews, and was killed to stop him.
The fact that Jesus was killed to stop him from bringing the Jews back to the faith, means that those who killed him were pretty sure that the backslidden Jews were believing Jesus.
You see, the Jews already believed the gospel, but had simply been tricked into believing that it was already fulfilled in Herod. Jesus simply had to convince them that Herod's kingdom was not the one, but that David's kingdom was still coming.
The parable of the 90 and 9 makes it clear that Jesus was committed to bringing every last backslidden Jew back to the fold, and Rome wanted him dead to end that threat. The chief priests and Pharisees wanted him dead to prevent Rome from ending the threat by killing all the Jews.
Everyone in first century Judea, either believed Jesus, were backslidden from Jesus' goal, or wanted Jesus dead.

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Re: Would anyone have listened to Jesus

Post #6

Post by Willum »

[Replying to post 5 by Provoker]

As I read your post, you claim that understanding of God's word will show us the way.

As far as I can tell, the only way to interpret this is that you mean, only by grossly mis-interpreting what the Bible says can anyone make sense of what the Bible says:

As Inigo Montoya said: That Word, I donna think it means what you think it means.

In fact your interpretation needs to be out of left field for that interpretation to bear out.

Sorry/V/R

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Provoker
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Re: Would anyone have listened to Jesus

Post #7

Post by Provoker »

[Replying to post 6 by Willum]Don't be sorry Willum:-)
I offered my opinion for discussion, not merely acceptance or dismissal.
There are three bits of context which remain after we use Occam's razor:
(1) God's everlasting gospel promise to Abraham was of the coming great nation, which will inherit everlasting possession of all the land between the Euphrates and the river of Egypt, and will bless all nations with peace on earth, good will toward men.
(2) After the Babylonian captivity ended, Judean Jews were watching for the coming Christ who will be given the kingdom of his father David, and bring peace on earth, good will toward men.
(3) Rome was in possession of that God defined land when Jesus was killed for preaching the gospel of the coming kingdom to backslidden Jews.

The thousands of denominations which exist today, shows that you can find bible verses to prove pretty well anything, and that may be the reason scripture was not written in verses in the first place. However, it's pretty hard for a reasonably logical person to miss the fact that Jesus was preaching the resurrection of David's kingdom on Roman Empire land, which made Jesus a threat to the national security of the Roman Empire. It is also pretty hard to miss the fact that Christianity today is based on an ecumenical, universal creed, which was commissioned and decreed orthodox, by the Roman Emperor Constantine. What do you think Inigo Montoya would say about that?

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Willum
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Re: Would anyone have listened to Jesus

Post #8

Post by Willum »

[Replying to post 7 by Provoker]

OK, sure, so what?
Actually everything you said has no discernible meaning, when compared to everything else.

So, answer the "so what?"
I don't see anything particular to this that hundreds of others can't claim.

I can predict your only answer to this is that you have only focused on one story, and are completely blind to everyone else who says the same things.
I will never understand how someone who claims to know the ultimate truth, of God, believes they deserve respect, when they cannot distinguish it from a fairy-tale.

You know, science and logic are hard: Religion and fairy tales might be more your speed.

To continue to argue for the Hebrew invention of God is actually an insult to the very concept of a God. - Divine Insight

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JP Cusick
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Re: Would anyone have listened to Jesus

Post #9

Post by JP Cusick »

Elijah John wrote: If the real, historical Jesus in the Monotheistic culture of first century Judaism had actually gone around claiming to be YHVH God in the flesh, would anyone have believed him and listened to anything he had to say?

Or is it more likely they would have dismissed him as insane?
According to the record in the book of Acts 1:15 then at that time there were only 120 people including the Disciples, so the very beginning of Christ followers were rather few at 120, especially when we are told that previously He had worked miracles as like that of feeding 5000 plus, and yet those 5000 had long disappeared.

And as other say - Jesus did not claim Himself to be the Father (YHVH or YHWH).

Then later in Acts 2:41 the Apostles added 3000 more people to their faith.

As such Jesus came with His mission but Jesus did not seek to create followers, but for the Apostles they were seeking to convert people - and so that is the beginning of that religion.

The pen proved mightier than the sword - is an appropriate saying for the New Testament, IMO.
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Provoker
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Re: Would anyone have listened to Jesus

Post #10

Post by Provoker »

[Replying to post 9 by JP Cusick]Hello JP:
At Nicaea in 325AD, Constantine presumably unequally yoked the apostolic assembly with pagans to establish a universal church. IMO, it is unlikely that a creed established by a democratic vote with pagans, would be supported by first century scripture. I think it is reasonable to assume that first century scripture had to be edited after the Nicene council. Eusebius would have been just the man to do that. IOW, I don't think we can trust everything recorded in the NT, but only scripture which agrees with the continuous consistent story which runs through the bible from the revelation of God's everlasting gospel promise to Abraham.
IOW, we should look for a logical reason to believe something, rather than just interpreting verses in the context of one's preconceptions.
What do you think?

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