"...Jesus might be nothing more than an Osirian-Essene-Mithraic myth. Suppose he wasn't, though? Suppose he was, well, not the literal incarnation of the Creator of these acres, those wildfowl, yonder universe...but at least the prophet from whose vision stemmed most of what was decent in all time to come. Could a life be better spent than following him on his ministry?
"Well, Havig would have to become fluent in Aramaic, plus a million details of living, and he would have to forget his quest...."
-Poul Anderson, There Will Be Time (New York, New York, March 1073), VI, p. 60.
Obsevations
(i) The ministry was short so a life would not be spent.
(ii) But fluency in Aramaic would be difficult.
(iii) But it could be gained there and then.
(iv) The mutant time travellers also need longevity.
(v) If I had Jack Havig's power, then Jesus is certainly one of the people that I would research and want to meet.
(vi) He could not possibly have suspected what future millennia would make of him.
(vii) Most decency has not stemmed from a single prophet.
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It does not matter if Christ's earthly ministry was short because He selected disciples to be His Apostles and continue his work on Earth after the Ascension.
Since I believe Christ to be God as well as man, not a mere prophet, all decency does stem from Him.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Indeed it does not matter that his ministry was short!
Since I believe Jesus to be man, not God, all decency does not stem from him.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
So noted.
Astra! Sean
"Why do you call me good? None is good except the one God." (Mk. 10:18)
I asked about this at school. Jesus seems to deny that he is God. The teacher (a Jesuit scholastic) replied that, if Jesus is good and if only God is good, then Jesus is God. Ye gods! Not every Biblical passage confirms to a single set of doctrines. Paul saw Jesus as a man raised up by God, not as God. Peter's Pentecost sermon agrees with this. Jesus had brothers and sisters so his mother did not remain a virgin even if she was in the first place.
Kaor, Paul!
Disagree, what the Messiah wanted the rich young man to do was to focus, not on Himself, Who had not yet unequivocally revealed His divinity. One annotation I read for Mark 10.18 is this: "None is good. Of himself entirely and essentially but God alone: men may be good also, but only by a participation of God's goodness." So that Jesuit priest was correct, but too brief.
St. Paul emphatically believed in the divinity of Christ (e.g., Col 1.15-20. And in 1 Cor. 10.4 Paul spoke of Christ as being both pre-existent and as God. And you overlook how Semites did not define familiar relationships as precisely as we do. A man's "brothers/sisters" included more distant relationships like half siblings and cousins. A very ancient tradition, recorded in the "Proto-Evangelium of James," states that St. Joseph had children by a first wife before marrying the BVM.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Disagree.
Jesus' question implied, "Don't call me (a man) good because only God is good." The scholastic (not yet ordained) was trying to give an answer that fitted with Catholic doctrine.
Paul spoke of Christ as a man raised up by God, not as God. I do not overlook these arguments. I remember making these arguments myself. That very ancient tradition tries to square the plain words of a Gospel with the Catholic doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Disagree, there are also many passages in the Apostle's writings where belief in Christ's divinity is implicit.
And I stand by what I said about the broad use of "brothers" by Jews.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Disagree. (Can we stop expressing ourselves like this?) Can you quote some of these passages?
I stand by what I said about brothers and indeed sisters. James, who led the church in Jerusalem, was "the brother of the Lord."
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I can cite several passages from St. Paul showing how he believed in Christ's divinity at least implicitly.
Romans 1.1-4: "Paul, the servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he had promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son who was born to him according to the flesh of the offspring of David, a son who was foreordained Son of God by an act of power in keeping with the holiness of his spirit, by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,..."
1 Corinthians 1.1-3: "Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, and Sosthenes our brother, to the church of God in Corinth, to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be saints with all who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place--their Lord as well as ours. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."
Colossians 1.15-20: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For in him were created all things in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominations, or Principalities, or Powers. All things have been created through and into him, and he is before all creatures, and in him all things hold together. Again, he is the head of his body, the Church, he, who is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in all things he may have the first place. For it has pleased God the Father that in him all his fullness should dwell, and that through him he should reconcile to himself all things, whether on the earth or in the heavens, making peace through the blood of his cross."
I could go on and on, but this is enough. The question of the Christology of the NT would need a book to discuss one I have being Fr. Raymond Brown's AN INTRODUCTION TO NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY.
I also note how, in the text from 1 Cor. St. Paul referred to Sosthenes as his "brother," an example of the broader use of that word.
In John 19.26, during the Passion of Christ, we read: "When Jesus, therefore, saw his mother and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold thy son." Then he said to his disciple, "Behold thy mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his house." That would make no sense if the BVM had borne other children, because they would have been the ones who would properly care for their mother, not a man who was not related to them. No, the "brothers/sisters" of Christ were either stepsiblings or cousins of the Savior, such as James, the first bishop of Jerusalem.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
That is not enough. Jesus is a son, made so by the Resurrection; God the Father AND the Lord Jesus; he is an image, the firstborn creature.
The synoptics say that, when Jesus was arrested, his male followers fled and the women watched the Crucifixion from a distance so John's story of his mother and the beloved disciple standing nearby is false.
No. Jesus' brothers and sisters were his brothers and sisters.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Deadlock and impasse. I referred you to Fr. Brown's book, where he discussed the NT evidence, explicit and implicit, for the belief in the divinity of Christ.
Ad astra! Sean
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