Why didn't Yeshua write anything?

[Gray]

7 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

I understand what you are saying, but I believe one can conclude the history is correct simply on the basis of choosing to believe the witnesses of it, whether that is done by the spirit or elsewise.

I would disagree. History is an academic discipline. I can't make religious statements about the structure of things in the world and claim I'm making scientific conclusions about chemistry. It's the same for history.

 

7 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

 

You are saying we must use some kind of tool to validate what the witnesses are saying in order to make such a conclusion, and I don't agree. I think modern scholars just feel the strong need to do that or they will be laughed at by their piers.

I think they feel the need to use these tools because they are scholars and this is what scholars do. The same reason why physicists use measurement and math instead of just going with their gut.

 

7 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

Many people in the past made conclusions on the historical nature of the biblical account without modern critical or textual analysis. I am not saying such analysis is worthless, but it definitely has limits. But if you want to look at if from an legal, evidentiary standpoint, I offer you a read I offered to Teancum: https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Testimony_of_the_Evangelists.html?id=dL8NdoqCGSIC

I would agree it has limits. But I would also say it's the only way to recover history from these texts. But history is not the same thing as theology. Different disciplines, different methods, different conclusions.

Taking theological works like the gospels at face value is no way to do history. It's fine for certain kinds of theology.

[thesometimesaint]

Did ancient Troy exist before we found it's ruins in the 1860's? 

[RevTestament]

3 minutes ago, Gray said:

I would disagree. History is an academic discipline. I can't make religious statements about the structure of things in the world and claim I'm making scientific conclusions about chemistry. It's the same for history.

I think they feel the need to use these tools because they are scholars and this is what scholars do. The same reason why physicists use measurement and math instead of just going with their gut.

I would agree it has limits. But I would also say it's the only way to recover history from these texts. But history is not the same thing as theology. Different disciplines, different methods, different conclusions.

Taking theological works like the gospels at face value is no way to do history. It's fine for certain kinds of theology.

You are just defining history as something that includes modern techniques of analysis. To you reading a book describing what happened is not history. I disagree. It's just not your version of history. You want to read multiple sources, compare and contrast, examine writing style, etc, before believing or drawing any conclusions. Well, fine, the 4 gospels obviously give you plenty of opportunity to do that. Many others have done it. See above link.

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Gray said:

I think your differences here really boil down to, again, historical Yeshua vs theological Jesus. MFB doesn't care at all about the historical Yeshua, and thinks it's irrelevant. To him the point is the beliefs surrounding the theological Jesus enrich human life.  You're more concerned with the history of what Yeshua as a human being said and did.

In my view both approaches are totally in line with the OP - you can take the question as a historical question or as a theological question.

I'm one of those people who tries to incorporate the historical Yeshua into my religious beliefs, so maybe I'm a little bit in between you and MFB.

Yes thanks- I don't have time for this frankly so I will bow out.

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

That's a fair statement, though I would argue that  that my original post he responded to was allowing for his theological, Jesus-as-myth in an anthropologic way to be as real and meaningful as any other. I just happen to not agree with this being the only modality one can use to understand Jesus and am in complete agreement with what you suggest that the truth likely lies somewhere between or in the overlap of these modal views. But since we can't like access the "facts" about Jesus we're left to do what we can with the tools and information we have. Frankly, I think he and I agree on much of the underlying conditionals but what can you do?

Oh gosh I can't take it.

3 sentences here

first is an intro 

second says that one modality doesn't work and the truth is between modalities.

third says what I said- we CANNOT have "facts" so we have to do it Bukowski's way.- deal with the information we have. 

All the previous back and forth was a waste of breath AND time.

Ok now I really am out of here. 

[thesometimesaint]

I think a good case can be made that an traveling preacher in Palestine some 2 millennia ago named Yeshua Bar Yosef lived. Whether he was also Yeshua Bar El is a matter of religion.

[Gray]

2 hours ago, RevTestament said:

You are just defining history as something that includes modern techniques of analysis. To you reading a book describing what happened is not history. I disagree. It's just not your version of history. You want to read multiple sources, compare and contrast, examine writing style, etc, before believing or drawing any conclusions. Well, fine, the 4 gospels obviously give you plenty of opportunity to do that. Many others have done it. See above link.

When you stray too far from good critical historical methods, you start to leave history and move into devotional material. Which is fine, there's a place for that, but it's not history.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

When you stray too far from good critical historical methods, you start to leave history and move into devotional material. Which is fine, there's a place for that, but it's not history.

Good "critical" methods ensure it is NOT "what really happened" and just add more levels of interpretation including what "experts" think constitutes "evidence" when they are not even trained in epistemology 

Any court in the world will tell you anything that is not eyewitness evidence is hearsay and not admissable. Even Judge Judy.

And eyewitnesses can be mistaken. Historical "facts" which have real world consequences, as in court, are decided by consensus of 12 people who are not witnesses, "beyond a REASONABLE doubt, " whatever that means to 12 non-experts. 

That is the best our culture can do to establish hysterical "facts", even when people's lives depend on it.

That standard never will be a guide in my life in important matters.  If that's your deal, go with it.

Not the best way to pick what gives your life meaning. That should be totally obvious to everyone,  which is why I am shocked that this nonsense even comes up in religious circles. What the H are people thinking??

I want some historian to tell me if Jesus is God????

Yes I think there are some devotional aspects here.

UNDERSTATEMENT

Edited June 30, 2017 by mfbukowski

[Gray]

48 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Good "critical" methods ensure it is NOT "what really happened" and just add more levels of interpretation including what "experts" think constitutes "evidence" when they are not even trained in epistemology 

Any court in the world will tell you anything that is not eyewitness evidence is hearsay and not admissable. Even Judge Judy.

And eyewitnesses can be mistaken. Historical "facts" which have real world consequences, as in court, are decided by consensus of 12 people who are not witnesses, "beyond a REASONABLE doubt, " whatever that means to 12 non-experts. 

That is the best our culture can do to establish hysterical "facts", even when people's lives depend on it.

That standard never will be a guide in my life in important matters.  If that's your deal, go with it.

Not the best way to pick what gives your life meaning. That should be totally obvious to everyone,  which is why I am shocked that this nonsense even comes up in religious circles. What the H are people thinking??

I want some historian to tell me if Jesus is God????

Yes I think there are some devotional aspects here.

UNDERSTATEMENT

History is stories about the past. It's the not the past itself, which is lost to us forever.

Of course historians can never address the question of whether or not Jesus is God, nor would any good historian try to do that. At least not while wearing their historian's hat.

One can affirm, from a historical basis, that it's unlikely that Jesus the man considered himself to be divine. One can also affirm, in the next breath, with no contradiction, that one believes that Jesus was in fact divine.

[Honorentheos]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Oh gosh I can't take it.

3 sentences here

first is an intro 

second says that one modality doesn't work and the truth is between modalities.

third says what I said- we CANNOT have "facts" so we have to do it Bukowski's way.- deal with the information we have. 

All the previous back and forth was a waste of breath AND time.

Ok now I really am out of here. 

Mark, the third sentence isn't saying we should go down your road, nor do you seem to understand the basics of what is meant about modalities. It's saying something quite different but very important. It's about how how choices at the frontend change the result one arrives at (which you'll agree with, kinda I know), but one is not narrowly pushed into that choice of necessity but something else. Usually bias. Sometimes, if one is so inclined and able, a person can go back to the first conditions and take a different approach, use different tools to see things from another's point of view. I get why that's not convienient for your argument, but again rock on, amigo!

Edited June 30, 2017 by Honorentheos

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

Mark, the third sentence isn't saying we should go down your road, nor do you seem to understand the basics of what is meant about modalities. It's saying something quite different but very important. It's about how how choices at the frontend change the result one arrives at (which you'll agree with, kinda I know), but one is not narrowly pushed into that choice of necessity but something else. Usually bias. Sometimes, if one is so inclined and able, a person can go back to the first conditions and take a different approach, use different tools to see things from another's point of view. I get why that's not convienient for your argument, but again rock on, amigo!

False. Bye. 

Everyone can see you are blowing smoke.

 

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Gray said:

History is stories about the past. It's the not the past itself, which is lost to us forever.

Of course historians can never address the question of whether or not Jesus is God, nor would any good historian try to do that. At least not while wearing their historian's hat.

One can affirm, from a historical basis, that it's unlikely that Jesus the man considered himself to be divine. One can also affirm, in the next breath, with no contradiction, that one believes that Jesus was in fact divine.

Have you read the new testament?

"Before Abraham was, I AM"

He died for that statement on charges of blasphemy. Cloaks rent, etc.

I guess he was just joking and wanted to commit suicide by Sanhedrin.

Edited June 30, 2017 by mfbukowski

[hagoth7]

5 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

..I guess he was just joking and wanted to commit suicide by Sanhedrin.

? Why connect those two thoughts?

[Honorentheos]

17 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

False. Bye. 

Everyone can see you are blowing smoke.

 

Mark -

To recap, you posted a response to a post regarding how the approach chosen to examine questions around Jesus with a comment about the limits on our access to history and your preferred (and in your mind the only) approach and possible result. Subsequent discussion included you countering my comment with a complaint about arguing for Jesus being illiterate (an argument I didn't make, and an ironic attempt to investigate the historical Jesus despite your own claims this is a white whale...;) ), demonstrating you probably don't even know what text criticism is, and doing what you usually do with relativism/pragmatism/post-everythingism.

So I while I don't know how others see the conversation, to me it seems quite clear you were shadow boxing rather than engaging in actual point-for-point discussion.

Let's be as explicit and on topic to the OP as possible. The question asked was why Jesus didn't leave writings. The attempts to answer this question are going to be speculative no matter what one believers or how one begins. Some approaches have more defensible methodologies than others, and the options available for speculation will be determined by the methodology chosen. If one approaches the question from that of both higher and lower criticism, seeking for the historical Jesus there are good reasons to believe that Jesus would probably have opposed adding to the Torah, would not have viewed his audience as extending beyond the people of the covenant among whom he lived, and the timeframe in which he had to accomplish what he intended to accomplish being quite short. None of which lend themselves to his actually writing for posterity by choice. That's defensible using a known and expertly acknowledged set of tools for engaging the New Testament. There are others, including that of devotional belief. Not exactly earth-shaking, that.

Anyway, if you want to say I'm wrong and leave the discussion that's cool. As we all know, your reality is in your head. By good fortune this also helps demonstrate just how limited the overlap is with the realities shared among the majority of others. So, rock on amigo!

[Honorentheos]

17 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Have you read the new testament?

"Before Abraham was, I AM"

He died for that statement on charges of blasphemy. Cloaks rent, etc.

I guess he was just joking and wanted to commit suicide by Sanhedrin.

If one isolates Mark 15 from the legend and other gospels, the trial and death of Jesus is a tragedy. The only dialog Jesus gives in it is limited to three utterances.

When Pilate asks him is he is the king of the Jews, he answers, "Thou sayest it."

Then, while standing accused before the Romans he does not answer any of the charges put to him by the chief priests. He is beaten, abused emotionally and physically, and crucified for treason against Rome. Given the historical context this is a valid charge, too. He was plotting against Rome, but in the name of a theological divine take over. Kinda like, I don't know, a mullah today in the west might in teaching the need for devote Muslims to resist the influence of the modern west maybe.

His second utterance is the famous, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" a plea to God to answer why he, Jesus, is being forsaken and subjected to this excruciating abuse, and at the hands of the Romans no less. For someone who was a firm believer that God was going to deliver the Jews from Rome this must have been quite psychologically shocking. Again, one can see parallels today as beliefs in all kinds of divine or paranormal super-events are left disappointed.

The third and final utterance is a cry just before he dies.

He didn't die by suicide by the Sanhedrin. He died in true belief that God would deliver the Jews from Rome which was a mounting and widely held hope/belief at the time. When he brought that intense fanatical belief to Jerusalem, overturned the tables of the money changers of the temple, and made himself a public figure the Romans took notice and squashed the problems he represented. Like they did countless others. Romans were all quite happy to let a person believe in whatever God they wanted, worship however they wanted. Just so long as they honored Roman and Caesar along the way. Jesus' motive for his treason was in having no other God before, even with, or after YHWH. I think it's understandable why he'd die for that, too. It doesn't require him having some secret knowledge of being divine or the lynch pin in the plan of salvation.

[mfbukowski]

14 hours ago, hagoth7 said:

? Why connect those two thoughts?

That was clearly sarcasm I thought.

He deliberately declared he was God knowing that it would be seen as blasphemy and that he would be tried for it, and crucified.

The assertion was that Jesus never declared that he was God and my reply was that his declaration that "I AM" must then have been a lie or a joke, or some kind of statement which he uttered simply to provoke the Jews into killing him for it.  

Sarcasm is defined as 

 

Quote

 

sar·casm

ˈsärˌkazəm/

noun

 

1. the use of irony to mock or convey contempt.

   "his voice, hardened by sarcasm, could not hide his resentment"

   synonyms:

   derision, mockery, ridicule, scorn, sneering, scoffing; More

 

So that was my intent in describing the ridiculous statement that Jesus never claimed He was God.

Some got it I guess. others clearly didn't.

I apologize if it offended anyone.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

If one isolates Mark 15 from the legend and other gospels, the trial and death of Jesus is a tragedy. The only dialog Jesus gives in it is limited to three utterances.

When Pilate asks him is he is the king of the Jews, he answers, "Thou sayest it."

Then, while standing accused before the Romans he does not answer any of the charges put to him by the chief priests. He is beaten, abused emotionally and physically, and crucified for treason against Rome. Given the historical context this is a valid charge, too. He was plotting against Rome, but in the name of a theological divine take over. Kinda like, I don't know, a mullah today in the west might in teaching the need for devote Muslims to resist the influence of the modern west maybe.

His second utterance is the famous, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" a plea to God to answer why he, Jesus, is being forsaken and subjected to this excruciating abuse, and at the hands of the Romans no less. For someone who was a firm believer that God was going to deliver the Jews from Rome this must have been quite psychologically shocking. Again, one can see parallels today as beliefs in all kinds of divine or paranormal super-events are left disappointed.

The third and final utterance is a cry just before he dies.

He didn't die by suicide by the Sanhedrin. He died in true belief that God would deliver the Jews from Rome which was a mounting and widely held hope/belief at the time. When he brought that intense fanatical belief to Jerusalem, overturned the tables of the money changers of the temple, and made himself a public figure the Romans took notice and squashed the problems he represented. Like they did countless others. Romans were all quite happy to let a person believe in whatever God they wanted, worship however they wanted. Just so long as they honored Roman and Caesar along the way. Jesus' motive for his treason was in having no other God before, even with, or after YHWH. I think it's understandable why he'd die for that, too. It doesn't require him having some secret knowledge of being divine or the lynch pin in the plan of salvation.

You are so intelligent I cannot understand your brilliant reply or what it has to do with anything I said.   As usual, your erudite response go right over my head as you are fond of pointing out.

Please have mercy on my stupidity.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

Mark -

To recap, you posted a response to a post regarding how the approach chosen to examine questions around Jesus with a comment about the limits on our access to history and your preferred (and in your mind the only) approach and possible result. Subsequent discussion included you countering my comment with a complaint about arguing for Jesus being illiterate (an argument I didn't make, and an ironic attempt to investigate the historical Jesus despite your own claims this is a white whale...;) ), demonstrating you probably don't even know what text criticism is, and doing what you usually do with relativism/pragmatism/post-everythingism.

So I while I don't know how others see the conversation, to me it seems quite clear you were shadow boxing rather than engaging in actual point-for-point discussion.

Let's be as explicit and on topic to the OP as possible. The question asked was why Jesus didn't leave writings. The attempts to answer this question are going to be speculative no matter what one believers or how one begins. Some approaches have more defensible methodologies than others, and the options available for speculation will be determined by the methodology chosen. If one approaches the question from that of both higher and lower criticism, seeking for the historical Jesus there are good reasons to believe that Jesus would probably have opposed adding to the Torah, would not have viewed his audience as extending beyond the people of the covenant among whom he lived, and the timeframe in which he had to accomplish what he intended to accomplish being quite short. None of which lend themselves to his actually writing for posterity by choice. That's defensible using a known and expertly acknowledged set of tools for engaging the New Testament. There are others, including that of devotional belief. Not exactly earth-shaking, that.

Anyway, if you want to say I'm wrong and leave the discussion that's cool. As we all know, your reality is in your head. By good fortune this also helps demonstrate just how limited the overlap is with the realities shared among the majority of others. So, rock on amigo!

Yessir.

Sorry sir

You are just too bright for me to tangle with I guess so from now on I will not disturb your brilliant replies.

See the above quoted definition a few posts up

[hagoth7]

7 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I apologize if it offended anyone.

Wasn't offended.

Was just seeking clarity.

Thank you.

[Honorentheos]

53 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Yessir.

Sorry sir

You are just too bright for me to tangle with I guess so from now on I will not disturb your brilliant replies.

See the above quoted definition a few posts up

Ignoring the schtick, I have to ask if you are feeling ok? It is really odd that you were conflating posters for example.

[Gray]

22 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Have you read the new testament?

"Before Abraham was, I AM"

He died for that statement on charges of blasphemy. Cloaks rent, etc.

I guess he was just joking and wanted to commit suicide by Sanhedrin.

Yes, that's the theological Jesus. The historical Yeshua almost certainly never said it.  But John (not the apostle)   believed that Jesus was divine.  So he incorporated that exchange into the sacred narrative

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Gray said:

Yes, that's the theological Jesus. The historical Yeshua almost certainly never said it.  But John (not the apostle)   believed that Jesus was divine.  So he incorporated that exchange into the sacred narrative

Almost certainly.  Uh huh.

On a scale of one to ten how almost was it short of certainty?  3 almost or 6.375 almost?  How about 6.45 short of certainty?

 I want to see the video.

Edited July 2, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

Ignoring the schtick, I have to ask if you are feeling ok? It is really odd that you were conflating posters for example.

You might be right

I could not possibly take on multiple posters in one comment so you must be right.  In fact I am feeling a little disgusted, thanks for asking.

I seldom make general points which apply to multiple issues, usually I think in terms of details rather than general positions.

No make that nauseous.  Sartre nauseous.

[Gray]

46 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Almost certainly.  Uh huh.

On a scale of one to ten how almost was it short of certainty?  3 almost or 6.375 almost?  How about 6.45 short of certainty?

 I want to see the video.

Jesus won't even let anyone call him good, but in the late source John, Jesus suddenly thinks he's Yahweh? The earliest and best sources don't present a Jesus who believes himself to be divine. Academic biblical studies has rules to it. You don't have to like them. You can even use postmodernism as launching pad toward total skepticism of history (except maybe the historical conclusions you like). 

I thought you only cared about the story itself? The story is that Jesus proclaims himself to be the son of God. The history is something different. So what? Isn't it the belief that's important to you? John didn't know Jesus the man. He wrote a story about the the truths he believed about Jesus the Son of God. He even warns the readers several times not to take the stories too literally. John puts words in Jesus' mouths to express theological truths, not facts about the life of Mary's son.

 

 

[hagoth7]

45 minutes ago, Gray said:

...John didn't know Jesus the man....

What John wrote doesn't come close to encompassing what/who John knew.

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/john/21.24-25?lang=eng#p23

 

Edited July 2, 2017 by hagoth7