So what if Jesus existed? Was he ‘divine’?

[Zzyzx]

.
So what if Jesus existed? Was he ‘divine’? Did he perform supernatural ‘miracles’?

A current thread is making a lot of fuss about a famous Atheist acknowledging that Jesus existed. Why?

Not everyone who is Non-Christian insists that Jesus never existed (though some do). Disbelief in existence of the Jewish preacher’s existence is not required for disbelief in Christian teachings.

In fact, it seems likely that a wandering Jewish preacher of that name lived 2000 years ago (perhaps several of them?).

That is a LONG way from ‘divinity’ or ‘miracles’ attributed to ‘Christ’ by religion promoters decades or generations later (and often evidently far away – pitched to a Gentile / Roman audience; since fellow Jews rejected the claims).

What verifiable evidence supports Bible tales of ‘divinity’ and supernatural ‘miracles’?

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 10 by Divine Insight]

The "your law" you are referring to was the oral law of the Pharisees and the Rabbis, not the written, Torah law. Codified into the Talmud. Jesus calls that oral law the "laws of men".

As I recall you often cite the fact that Jesus came to fulfill the Law.

So if YHVH was not Jesus' God and Father, who was Jesus God, Zeus? And if the "Old" Testament (the Hebrew Bible) was not Jesus own Bible, why did he read from the Isaiah scroll at the beginning of Luke? And why did he quote the prophets Jeremiah, and Hosea? And the Psalms?

And who was Jesus teaching us to pray to when he taught the "Our Father"? YHVH? Or Zeus?

[Tcg]

[Replying to post 10 by Divine Insight]

The "your law" you are referring to was the oral law of the Pharisees and the Rabbis, not the written, Torah law.

How could Jesus possibly have been referring to oral law when in both cases he refers to what had been written in their law?

• John 8:17 It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true.
  
  John 10:34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

It's not hard to find the written texts he may have had in mind.

• Deuteronomy 17:6 On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.
  
  Psalm 82:6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.

Tcg

[Divine Insight]

As I recall you often cite the fact that Jesus came to fulfill the Law.

You must have me confused with someone else. I absolutely reject that claim. In fact, I claim that it's utterly absurd that the Bible even makes that claim. It's obviously a mistranslated of the original rumors.

What would it mean for Jesus to "fulfill the law"?

Let's say the law is that all adulterers must be stoned to death. Then, in order for Jesus to fulfill the law, he would need to go around stoning to death all adulterers.

Let's not forget that Jesus himself proclaimed that any man who lusts after another man's wife in his mind has already committed adultery. If Jesus wants to fulfill that law he's going to need to stone a lot of men to death. How many men did Jesus stone to death? None? That should settle the question about how much Jesus fulfilled any laws.

He even refused to cast the first stone at an adulteress who had been caught in the act. So he didn't fulfill any laws.

What he might have done was fulfill some prophesies, but he clearly didn't even fulfill the prophesies of the promised messiah, so he didn't meet that criteria either.

I never claim that is is a fact that Jesus came to fulfill the law. However, I do often point out that the scriptures make this claim and how utterly absurd that claim truly is.

So if YHVH was not Jesus' God and Father, who was Jesus God, Zeus? And if the "Old" Testament (the Hebrew Bible) was not Jesus own Bible, why did he read from the Isaiah scroll at the beginning of Luke? And why did he quote the prophets Jeremiah, and Hosea? And the Psalms?

And who was Jesus teaching us to pray to when he taught the "Our Father"? YHVH? Or Zeus?

Jesus wasn't teaching "us" anything. If anything, he was trying to convince the people he was hoping to impress by citing from the aspects of a religion they would most likely agree with. In fact, in the culture where he was preaching, to preach too far from the cultural beliefs would be considered blaspheme, so he had to be extremely clever in trying to frame his favorite points in a context that would at least appear to be in harmony with the accepted dogma of place and time he was preaching.

In fact, I even point out an extreme logical contradiction in Jesus' position.

Jesus claimed that the Pharisees were the most evil hypocrites, yet he went to their temple and called it the House of God. He should have condemned the temple of the pharisees as being a den of iniquity. Instead he basically demanded that the Pharisees were indeed God's very own CHOSEN PRIESTS.

This religion is so riddled with extreme contradictions and obviously flaws its difficult for me to understand how anyone can continue to believe it has any merit at all.

Another extreme contradiction in this religion is that Jesus supposedly had the divine power to cast evil demons out of humans and into swine. If that's true then why didn't he simply go to God's temple and cast the evil demons out of God's Priests and restore God's Temple to it's rightful state of holiness?

After the evil demons had been case out of the priests, they all would have surely bowed down and worshiped Jesus as the Son of God, and have been more than anxious to kiss his feet for having freed them from their demonic possession.

The fallacies of this entire religious mythology are overwhelming.

In order to believe in this religion a person would need to believe in a God that either doesn't even care about his very own priests, or a God who is incapable of even helping them.

A God who is also completely helpless, and incapable of preventing anyone from becoming demon possessed.

Also, why was Jesus casting demons out of anyone? Why would the original God have allowed demons to possess people who didn't deserve to be possessed by demons in the first place?

In other words, Jesus could have only cast demons out of people that God had already allowed demons to possess.

None of this makes any sense in terms of how an real omnipotent God would actually behalf.

It's clearly nothing more than very poorly thought-out superstitions.

Jesus didn't fulfill any laws. He didn't even fulfill any credible prophesies about the original messiah. And if he couldn't restore God's temple to it's rightful place of holiness, then he wasn't a very powerful demigod. And according to this theology he was a demigod, born half human and half God via a virgin moral woman who had been impregnated by God (even if via some magical form of spiritual insemination).

There's just far too much wrong with this religion, and nowhere near enough sense to it. Even theists who want to believe in it can't make any sense of it. It's that bad.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 13 by Divine Insight]

For all that, you still haven't told us who was Jesus God if it wasn't YHVH.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 12 by Tcg]

Good points, but does that prove that Jesus' Bible was not the Hebrew Bible and that his God was not YHVH?

If you think so, why does Jesus read from the Isaiah scroll and quote the Psalms, Hosea, Jeremiah and the prophets?

[Tcg]

[Replying to post 12 by Tcg]

Good points, but does that prove that Jesus' Bible was not the Hebrew Bible and that his God was not YHVH?

If you think so, why does Jesus read from the Isaiah scroll and quote the Psalms, Hosea, Jeremiah and the prophets?

Why would you ask if I think any of these things? I claimed none of them. I simply pointed out the obvious flaw in your argument concerning oral versus written law.


If you think you have some other point to make, hopefully one not based on an obvious flaw in logic, it is up to you to attempt to support it. It is not my duty to support claims I've never made.



Tcg

[Mithrae]

If you think so, why does Jesus read from the Isaiah scroll and quote the Psalms, Hosea, Jeremiah and the prophets?

DI's got a point here John at least does arguably imply a rather distant or guarded relationship between Jesus and the Jewish scriptures. In fact it's possible that the opening verses of the gospel are closely patterned after a verse in the Hindu scriptures. Jesus at times used the Tanakh to communicate his message in a way his listeners would understand (and at times directly contradicted teachings found therein); he also used Hebrew or Aramaic to communicate in a way they'd understand: Which of these, if either, can we validly infer were considered sacred by Jesus?

[William]

Elijah John: So if YHVH was not Jesus' God and Father, who was Jesus God, Zeus?

William: No. Jesus didn't identify his GOD by any name.


Elijah John: And if the "Old" Testament (the Hebrew Bible) was not Jesus own Bible, why did he read from the Isaiah scroll at the beginning of Luke?

William: Because it was more pertinent than reading from script of another culture. The culture he was reaching out to identified with that script.


Elijah John: And why did he quote the prophets Jeremiah, and Hosea? And the Psalms?

William: Same reason. No point in quoting script from another culture.
It is very reasonable to suppose that Jesus was impressed with certain stories from the Hebrew culture.


Elijah John: And who was Jesus teaching us to pray to when he taught the "Our Father"? YHVH? Or Zeus?

William: Neither. Why only those 2 choices? Why not a completely new idea of GOD?


Elijah John: So if YHVH was not Jesus' God and Father, who was Jesus God, Zeus?

William: Biblical Jesus is only shown to refer to his idea of GOD as "The Father". Given his audience, using that title of GOD was likely the least problematic.
What we do know, is that the bible barely scratches the surface in relation to what Jesus spoke of. We are informed that most of what he did wasn't done in the public domain.


Elijah John: Who was Jesus teaching us to pray to when he taught the "Our Father"? YHVH? Or Zeus?

William: The First Source, rather than the Demiurge. The Creator of all things, including the Demiurge.