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Among historians it is generally believed that there was a preacher called (something like) Jesus which was crucified by the Romans. But looking at the only ava

by olavk 12y ago

Among historians it is generally believed that there was a preacher called (something like) Jesus which was crucified by the Romans. But looking at the only available sources (the Gospels) it is not even clear that he claimed to be the Messiah. The gospels are clearly written by people who believed him to be the Messiah, but the quotations directly attributed to Jesus are quite ambiguous regarding the "divinity" of Jesus himself. Notably be appears much more "divine" in the latest gospel than in the earliest, so the divinity seem have been a development over time among his followers. Even if he did himself claim to be the Messiah, it is very different from claiming to be the Lord, since the Jewish concept of Messiah is a (blessed) human king, not a divine being. The concept of the trinity where Jesus IS God is a later concept, not even present in the Bible. And the "Son of God" thing is basically a cultural misunderstanding, because it means something different among Jews (where basically everybody are Gods children) and Greeks (where Gods like Zeus literally had half-human children with superpowers). So apart from the Liar/Lunatic/Lord trilemma, there is the option "A cult leader that didn't really claim the be the Lord, but his followers came to believe that he was".

mgkimsal 12y ago
> there is the option "A cult leader that didn't really claim the be the Lord, but his followers came to believe that he was". That's what I'd class as 'legend'.
- olavk 12y ago
  Yeah, agreed. I just wanted to make clear that you could believe in the historicity of Jesus without having to accept the Liar/Lunatic/Lord dilemma, since Jesus never claimed to be "Lord" in the first place.
  - eurleif 12y ago
    "I and the Father are one." --Jesus in John 10:30
    - olavk 12y ago
      Yeah, John is the latest gospel where he is presented as much more "divine". Compare to Mark, which is the earliest gospel.
      - lotharbot 12y ago
        John is the "in your face" gospel -- it leads with the conclusions. The other three are more like "come along for the journey" -- they walk you through the process of the disciples coming to understand Jesus. There are divinity claims all over those gospels, but they're more subtle. For example, early in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus quotes the Old Testament saying "You are to worship the Lord your God and serve only him." At the very end of Matthew, Jesus meets the disciples, who worship him, and he does not criticize them or stop them (contrast with Peter in Acts 10.) Once that connection is made, it's an obvious divinity claim -- but it's one that might take time to realize is there. A few other examples: Psalm 103 says the Lord "is the one who forgives all your sins"; Jesus does it in Mark 2. Both Isaiah 43 and Hosea 13 specify that God alone is Savior, and Luke 1:47 repeats it just prior to calling Jesus the Savior in Luke 2:11. Deuteronomy 10 establishes heaven as entirely God's property, but Jesus claims to be the one controlling entry to heaven in Matthew 7. Given Jesus' obviously strong knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures, it's hard to get away from the conclusion that he was making intentional claims of being God.
        JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        But he wasn't writing the gospels. So we don't know what he intended, only what the reporter wrote down. And they were in the storey. So the possibility of slant is clear.
        lotharbot 12y ago
        sure -- but we know the reporter wrote down divinity claims, even in the earliest gospels. Keep in mind the Lord-Liar-Lunatic argument is aimed at those who claim "Jesus is a great moral teacher" based on the things Jesus is quoted as saying. Jesus is quoted as making divinity claims, many of which are obvious if you have good knowledge of Hebrew scriptures and religious practices. The "Legend" option (Jesus didn't really say those things) is still open, but that makes it harder to claim anything about the value of Jesus' moral teachings.
joshuahedlund 12y ago
> "A cult leader that didn't really claim the be the Lord, but his followers came to believe that he was" I'm curious, what are this position's ideas on how his followers came to believe this? One common response to the general argument is that most of Jesus' disciples were martyred and would have had no motivation to die for a lie.
- olavk 12y ago
  This is a really interesting question! There is a development through the gospels, where the oldest focus on the actions, saying and prophecies of Jesus, while the newest (John) is much more focused on the divinity of the person Jesus. Paul seem quite uninterested in the words of Jesus and totally focused on the importance of the resurrection. So the transformation from teacher or prophet (a normal human speaking the words of God) into a some kind of divine being happened quite soon. To put is crudely, Jesus start out as a priest talking about the Gods plans, but over time, in the minds of his followers, turns into a God himself. But the full transformation into "God" was only finalized with the Nicene Creed in 325. Even now there are Christian denomination which do not believe that Jesus is God, most notable Jehovas Witnesses (which holds that Jesus was created by God, and therefore not God himself). An important transformation is that the title of Messiah (or Christ in Greek translation) has a very specific meaning in a Jewish context, as a human king or savior of the Hebrew people. When early Christianity spread beyond Jews, this context disappeared, and the title "son of God" got reinterpreted in a Greek context, where gods could literally have children.
  - lotharbot 12y ago
    > "the full transformation into "God" was only finalized with the Nicene Creed in 325." The Nicene Creed is one of the clearest statements of the "Jesus is God" hypothesis, but (as I said elsewhere in this thread) there are plenty of strong claims made in the gospels themselves. There are also similar claims made in many of the earlier writings of the church (if you're honestly interested, there are 10 pre-Nicene volumes at http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html .)
- tach4n 12y ago
baddox 12y ago
I don't know, he seems pretty obviously divine in all the gospels. As for him claiming to be divine, I don't really understand the argument, because if we would assume that a report that he claimed to be divine is accurate, why wouldn't we assume that a report of clearly divine actions and attributes is accurate?
- olavk 12y ago
  I wouldn't say "obviously divine". He certainly performs healings, exorcisms and miracles - but his disciples are also granted these powers, and they are not considered part of the trinity. So more like blessed with some supernatural powers, which is quite different from being God himself. In Acts there is even a guy walking around healing people which is not related to the disciples. So it seems in the universe where the Gospels takes place, you dont have to be a God to perform miracles.

by olavk 12y ago

mgkimsal 12y ago

> there is the option "A cult leader that didn't really claim the be the Lord, but his followers came to believe that he was". That's what I'd class as 'legend'.

olavk 12y ago
Yeah, agreed. I just wanted to make clear that you could believe in the historicity of Jesus without having to accept the Liar/Lunatic/Lord dilemma, since Jesus never claimed to be "Lord" in the first place.
- eurleif 12y ago
  "I and the Father are one." --Jesus in John 10:30
  - olavk 12y ago
    Yeah, John is the latest gospel where he is presented as much more "divine". Compare to Mark, which is the earliest gospel.
    - lotharbot 12y ago
      John is the "in your face" gospel -- it leads with the conclusions. The other three are more like "come along for the journey" -- they walk you through the process of the disciples coming to understand Jesus. There are divinity claims all over those gospels, but they're more subtle. For example, early in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus quotes the Old Testament saying "You are to worship the Lord your God and serve only him." At the very end of Matthew, Jesus meets the disciples, who worship him, and he does not criticize them or stop them (contrast with Peter in Acts 10.) Once that connection is made, it's an obvious divinity claim -- but it's one that might take time to realize is there. A few other examples: Psalm 103 says the Lord "is the one who forgives all your sins"; Jesus does it in Mark 2. Both Isaiah 43 and Hosea 13 specify that God alone is Savior, and Luke 1:47 repeats it just prior to calling Jesus the Savior in Luke 2:11. Deuteronomy 10 establishes heaven as entirely God's property, but Jesus claims to be the one controlling entry to heaven in Matthew 7. Given Jesus' obviously strong knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures, it's hard to get away from the conclusion that he was making intentional claims of being God.
      - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        But he wasn't writing the gospels. So we don't know what he intended, only what the reporter wrote down. And they were in the storey. So the possibility of slant is clear.
        lotharbot 12y ago
        sure -- but we know the reporter wrote down divinity claims, even in the earliest gospels. Keep in mind the Lord-Liar-Lunatic argument is aimed at those who claim "Jesus is a great moral teacher" based on the things Jesus is quoted as saying. Jesus is quoted as making divinity claims, many of which are obvious if you have good knowledge of Hebrew scriptures and religious practices. The "Legend" option (Jesus didn't really say those things) is still open, but that makes it harder to claim anything about the value of Jesus' moral teachings.

joshuahedlund 12y ago

> "A cult leader that didn't really claim the be the Lord, but his followers came to believe that he was" I'm curious, what are this position's ideas on how his followers came to believe this? One common response to the general argument is that most of Jesus' disciples were martyred and would have had no motivation to die for a lie.

olavk 12y ago
This is a really interesting question! There is a development through the gospels, where the oldest focus on the actions, saying and prophecies of Jesus, while the newest (John) is much more focused on the divinity of the person Jesus. Paul seem quite uninterested in the words of Jesus and totally focused on the importance of the resurrection. So the transformation from teacher or prophet (a normal human speaking the words of God) into a some kind of divine being happened quite soon. To put is crudely, Jesus start out as a priest talking about the Gods plans, but over time, in the minds of his followers, turns into a God himself. But the full transformation into "God" was only finalized with the Nicene Creed in 325. Even now there are Christian denomination which do not believe that Jesus is God, most notable Jehovas Witnesses (which holds that Jesus was created by God, and therefore not God himself). An important transformation is that the title of Messiah (or Christ in Greek translation) has a very specific meaning in a Jewish context, as a human king or savior of the Hebrew people. When early Christianity spread beyond Jews, this context disappeared, and the title "son of God" got reinterpreted in a Greek context, where gods could literally have children.
- lotharbot 12y ago
  > "the full transformation into "God" was only finalized with the Nicene Creed in 325." The Nicene Creed is one of the clearest statements of the "Jesus is God" hypothesis, but (as I said elsewhere in this thread) there are plenty of strong claims made in the gospels themselves. There are also similar claims made in many of the earlier writings of the church (if you're honestly interested, there are 10 pre-Nicene volumes at http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html .)
tach4n 12y ago

baddox 12y ago

I don't know, he seems pretty obviously divine in all the gospels. As for him claiming to be divine, I don't really understand the argument, because if we would assume that a report that he claimed to be divine is accurate, why wouldn't we assume that a report of clearly divine actions and attributes is accurate?

olavk 12y ago
I wouldn't say "obviously divine". He certainly performs healings, exorcisms and miracles - but his disciples are also granted these powers, and they are not considered part of the trinity. So more like blessed with some supernatural powers, which is quite different from being God himself. In Acts there is even a guy walking around healing people which is not related to the disciples. So it seems in the universe where the Gospels takes place, you dont have to be a God to perform miracles.