About Jesus

[themonkeyman]

Hey Folks,

 

I am presently writing a book called 'Pro Celsus Adverses Eclesicia' In English : For Celus Against The Church.

 

I feel that the guy who managed in afew simple words to undo the whole fear of hell from Christianity deserves a rebutal to the Apologetic Crap of Bishop Cyril and Origen!

 

Anyway one thing that he points at a hole is the fact that Jesus one minute called Peter satan and in the very next verse says that he will build his church upon him.

 

Does that not give us a clue that Jesus was an out right idiot,  He essentially said 'I know you betrayed me 3 times and I called you Satain but sure heres the keys to the kingdom of heaven'

 

If that does not show plain as day that Jesus either was ignorant that he just called the 'First Pope' Satan or either he never made peter the leader of the church.

 

Celsus picked at very subtle holes in the Gospels and not the obvious ones,  Some he picked at were because through his own independant study he heard alternatives to what was written down so picked at them to cause the movement to stumble.

 

Unfortunately he and his true works were burned and all we have is crap from Origens rebuttal against celsus which if we know the church has probably had makeup applied and all the really dangerous statements removed.

 

Do you really think if Celsus said something that damaging that some Church leader would write a rebuttal,  I'd say back then its easier to burn all traces of said person and their literature than to write down Celsus original statement.

 

E.g. Is it not easier to be ignorant than to act with full knowledge and stumble.

[RipVanWinkle]

Maybe Jesus was implying that Satan and the church were one and the same or at least closely related. If so, he was right.  bill

[Blood]

Hey Folks,

 

I am presently writing a book called 'Pro Celsus Adverses Eclesicia' In English : For Celus Against The Church.

 

I feel that the guy who managed in afew simple words to undo the whole fear of hell from Christianity deserves a rebutal to the Apologetic Crap of Bishop Cyril and Origen!

 

Anyway one thing that he points at a hole is the fact that Jesus one minute called Peter satan and in the very next verse says that he will build his church upon him.

 

Does that not give us a clue that Jesus was an out right idiot,  He essentially said 'I know you betrayed me 3 times and I called you Satain but sure heres the keys to the kingdom of heaven'

 

If that does not show plain as day that Jesus either was ignorant that he just called the 'First Pope' Satan or either he never made peter the leader of the church.

 

Celsus picked at very subtle holes in the Gospels and not the obvious ones,  Some he picked at were because through his own independant study he heard alternatives to what was written down so picked at them to cause the movement to stumble.

 

Unfortunately he and his true works were burned and all we have is crap from Origens rebuttal against celsus which if we know the church has probably had makeup applied and all the really dangerous statements removed.

 

Do you really think if Celsus said something that damaging that some Church leader would write a rebuttal,  I'd say back then its easier to burn all traces of said person and their literature than to write down Celsus original statement.

 

E.g. Is it not easier to be ignorant than to act with full knowledge and stumble.

 

The church did not have the power to burn opponents' books during Celsus and Origen's time. That only came much later, when they did actually burn all copies of Porphyry's far more devastating critique Against the Christians. 

 

Celsus apparently did not have much access to the Christian texts, so a lot of his criticism is just against their claims in general. Porphyry studied the texts. 

 

The problem then, and now, is that people read the gospels as if they preserve the words and deeds of Jesus. They do not. So the stuff about Peter being "Satan" one minute, and "the Rock" of the church the next, was written to make some obscure theological point that was lost on people outside the inner circle of mythologists writing this stuff. 

[themonkeyman]

That is so true however Celsus was the only one who picked at the Earlier Doctorine of Eternal Hell and made point that Christians are blowing smoke when infact other Religions of the day also taught the same thing to gain converts

[miekko]

I think the character of Jesus in the canonical gospels seems confused and conflicted. He describes the "heavenly father" as being someone very different from the character of Yahweh in the OT. And yet, Jesus quotes the OT scriptures and calls the temple his father's house. He also calls the Pharisees "children of the devil" and describes their god as if he is the devil. Jesus seems to preach a doctrine in contrast to the teachings of Moses (e.g., the Sermon on the Mount) and opposes the religious institution handed down from Moses. Jesus makes grand statements about his heavenly father being with him through the crucifixion and then cries out that god has abandoned him on the cross. Either Jesus didn't know what he was all about, or he had some other understanding about it all that was unfortunately not clearly spelled out.

This is a thing people keep claiming ad nauseam, but it's not all that well supportable. The heavenly father that Jesus describes will send people to an eternity of torment , will make it worse for the towns that didn't listen to Jesus than it was for Sodom and Gomorrah, and any number of parables telling just how harsh the accounting will be with regards to who will be accepted.

 

Let us look a bit at just what kind of a heavenly father Jesus preached:

Luk16:~20 and onwards: And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

 

 

Luk 10: But into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the same, and say, Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.

 

The sermon on the mount does not contrast with the laws of Moses - in fact, pretty much every single thing you can find in the sermon on the mount can be found in the old testament, and a significant portion thereof in the pentateuch. Not verbatim, but the same meaning. The only thing he does that contrasts with it is really that he makes it even stricter - it no longer suffices not to kill, you shouldn't even call someone stupid, it no longer suffices to be faithful to your spouse, you should tear your eye out if it happens to latch onto another attractive person. There's one thing Christians tend to think he abrogated: "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy." Nowhere in the OT can you find 'hate thine enemy', however! Whether it's there for rhetorical exaggeration or due to it having been taught by some small Jewish groups is unknown at this time.

 

The religious institutions he opposes were not handed down from Moses, and that's actually the big disagreement in Jesus' time between various groups - the Pharisees taught that their oral law was handed down from Moses, with all the various institutions they had implemented. The Sadducees and the Essenes opposed the Pharisees over whether those institutions indeed were from Moses, although the Sadducees also opposed various other stances Jesus held (i.e. whether the rest of the OT had any validity). Jesus' opposition to the Pharisees probably was over the particular question whether the Pharisees' understanding of the law was authoritative or not. The Pharisees often even made the Torah law more mild - they in fact made it almost impossible to sentence anyone to death! (Which is an additional reason to suspect the narrative about the unfaithful woman who had been caught in flagranti to be an entirely completely made up story despite it not having any actually 'miraculous' content).

 

I think your analysis of Jesus is based on a liberal misreading of him - a desire to not acknowledge just how terrible a person he was - you are willing to reject some of that analysis, but you see a tension between his "good" side and his "bad" side, whereas if you were to really look deeper into the stuff, the character depicted in the gospels has very little of the modern "goodness" you'd like to see in him. What further makes this even murkier is that you don't seem to know all that much about the Judaism of Jesus' time, yet your analysis relies on it being exactly like Christians describe it: rotten to the core, full of hatred and hypocrisy.

 

 also don't think Jesus meant that he was building or founding a church on Peter. The Greek word for church is "ekklesia" ("called out ones") which more properly means a community, not organized religion. And he said to Peter, "you are petros" (a stone), and upon this petra (a rock) I will build my ekklesia. The rock Jesus meant was the statement Peter made, "You are the Christ of God," not Peter himself. Religious politics and cultural tradition have translated the word as "church" in all major English versions of the bible. Even today, there is not full scholarly honesty in translating some passages. 

 

 

Your analysis makes very little sense; is there a difference in whether Jesus was building a 'church' or a 'community' - not really, and historically, the church has been a community. Communities are organized, and in that time they invariable had organized rituals, organized religious principles etc. The text pretty clearly is written with the intent of saying that Peter is an important authority of the community of Jesus-believers. It's unlikely Jesus ever said it - it's quite likely it was inserted by later, Rome-centric Christians. If the Jesus-character in the text meant to say the statement Peter made was the rock, why didn't he just say so? You can't just read a verse in isolation like you're doing - it's part of an utterance that now has been split into three verses in the verse numbering system - 

 

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

 

It would be very weird and improbable for "thou" to suddenly start referring to something entirely different - viz. the statement that Jesus is Christ, the son of God - all of a sudden like that, only to revert in the next sentence. It is very clear this refers to the organization of a religious community - keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the use of 'bind' and 'loose' as metaphors for banning and permitting, metaphors that also were in use by Jewish sources of the time. 

 

However, it's probably not likely this ever was uttered by any Jesus, but was a statement written into the text to bolster the authority of Rome. 

[Blood]

The entire thing was written by "later, Rome-centric Christians" -- not just the parts that people don't like. 

[miekko]

The entire thing was written by "later, Rome-centric Christians" -- not just the parts that people don't like. 

I dunno, some parts may have been written by late Alexandria-centric Christians or who knows, Damascus-centered Christians or whatever. Maybe they were all written by Rome-centered ones. A few of them we can be fairly sure about having Rome-centric origins though. (Duly note that not all the churches that accept the NT are Rome-centric, c.f. the Syriac church or the Copts. )

 

Still, my main points stand.

[francesco]

It's jesus prophecy that church leaders are evil

And it's true, sex molester, corruptor, power seeker, etc

[rach]

I think the character of Jesus in the canonical gospels seems confused and conflicted. He describes the "heavenly father" as being someone very different from the character of Yahweh in the OT. And yet, Jesus quotes the OT scriptures and calls the temple his father's house. He also calls the Pharisees "children of the devil" and describes their god as if he is the devil. Jesus seems to preach a doctrine in contrast to the teachings of Moses (e.g., the Sermon on the Mount) and opposes the religious institution handed down from Moses. Jesus makes grand statements about his heavenly father being with him through the crucifixion and then cries out that god has abandoned him on the cross. Either Jesus didn't know what he was all about, or he had some other understanding about it all that was unfortunately not clearly spelled out.

 

^ This is what baffled me when I was a student of the Bible!  The old testament set up the people for a particular belief system, and the religious Jews devoted themselves to it completely, they studied it and they lived it out.  That was Yahweh's system.  Then suddenly Yahweh's son appears and the religious Jews are told that everything they've been doing is wrong?!  They were only doing what Yahweh told them.  The "scribes and Pharisees" that Jesus bitched at all the time probably were not the nicest of people but they were very devoted to his fathers' religion which his father had set up.  So suddenly it's all wrong and they're headed to hell.  I think Jesus and Yahweh are playing some serious mind games with people.  Yahweh says "do all these things or I'll strike your people with a plague", so the people do what Yahweh says, and then Jesus arrives and says the way they were doing it is all wrong.  Well Jesus it's Yahweh your father who is wrong then since he told them to do things that way!  But then Jesus continues to mess with the mind and says he and Yawheh are one and agree with each other about everything even though they don't. 

 

If these Gods Jesus and Yawheh are real its' not even worth following their rules because they will just keep changing the rules halfway though the game and nobody can ever win at a game played like that

[miekko]

 

I think the character of Jesus in the canonical gospels seems confused and conflicted. He describes the "heavenly father" as being someone very different from the character of Yahweh in the OT. And yet, Jesus quotes the OT scriptures and calls the temple his father's house. He also calls the Pharisees "children of the devil" and describes their god as if he is the devil. Jesus seems to preach a doctrine in contrast to the teachings of Moses (e.g., the Sermon on the Mount) and opposes the religious institution handed down from Moses. Jesus makes grand statements about his heavenly father being with him through the crucifixion and then cries out that god has abandoned him on the cross. Either Jesus didn't know what he was all about, or he had some other understanding about it all that was unfortunately not clearly spelled out.

 

^ This is what baffled me when I was a student of the Bible!  The old testament set up the people for a particular belief system, and the religious Jews devoted themselves to it completely, they studied it and they lived it out.  That was Yahweh's system.  Then suddenly Yahweh's son appears and the religious Jews are told that everything they've been doing is wrong?! 

 

Except it's not as simple as that. The Pharisees - which were Jesus' main opponents - adhered to a system of religious law that was DIFFERENT from the written Bible. They did explicitly say that their law overruled Biblical law. (IMHO, this was a good thing - that way, they could ignore some of the most insane stuff in the OT's legal system). Nevertheless, they pretended that what they were adhering to was what God had given Moses at Sinai. (Of course, we can be pretty sure by now that Moses never existed, and we can be pretty sure no Torah was given at Sinai - however, we can be just as certain that Pharisaic law is a later development than the written Torah is.) 

 

And, as I already pointed out in this thread once, there was a conflict within Judaism of the time whether the Pharisees had the authority to do this. It seems pretty obvious Jesus doesn't so much oppose Old Testament law (with the exception of divorce, which he claims Moses caved in on and added due to people being weak and dodgy about things) as he opposed the non-Biblical bits of Pharisaism. This opposition was shared by the Sadducees - but the Sadducees, on the other hand, rejected the prophets and the writings keeping only the five books of Moses as sources of authority. 

 

Saying that what the Pharisees did was "Yahweh's system" is really misunderstanding the situation - there were several systems in place at the time, each of which saw itself as the legit system of Yahweh's, and each of which considered the other systems an aberration.

 

 

 They were only doing what Yahweh told them.  The "scribes and Pharisees" that Jesus bitched at all the time probably were not the nicest of people but they were very devoted to his fathers' religion which his father had set up.  So suddenly it's all wrong and they're headed to hell.  I think Jesus and Yahweh are playing some serious mind games with people.  Yahweh says "do all these things or I'll strike your people with a plague", so the people do what Yahweh says, and then Jesus arrives and says the way they were doing it is all wrong.  Well Jesus it's Yahweh your father who is wrong then since he told them to do things that way!  But then Jesus continues to mess with the mind and says he and Yawheh are one and agree with each other about everything even though they don't. 

 

Please, you would do well to study what exactly the Pharisees taught. When Jesus opposes practices found in Judaism, with the exception of divorce*, he's really opposing practices that were not considered okay by Jews either! Most people seem to assume the pharisees in the NT do what the OT teaches them to do, but this is far from the case. In addition, of course, the pharisees in the NT are not very similar to the pharisaism that we have evidence of.

 

 

* And divorce was forbidden by one Jewish movement, viz. the Essenes. 

 

 

If these Gods Jesus and Yawheh are real its' not even worth following their rules because they will just keep changing the rules halfway though the game and nobody can ever win at a game played like that

 

 

 

I agree that Jesus is not worth following even if he were real - but the idea that the rules were changed with the NT is based on a really bad understanding of both Judaism and the NT.