Honoring the historical Jesus

[CV75]

14 hours ago, bluebell said:

I haven't studied the topic hardly at all, but I was under the impression that there were practically no non-religious historical records that record actual teachings of Jesus.  But maybe Gray knows of some.  They would definitely be relevant and interesting to discuss.

I share that observation -- just trying to facilitate the conversation...!

Who in that time and place might be recording Jesus' teachings from a non-religious perspective?

[CV75]

14 hours ago, mnn727 said:

There are no sources that are contemporary to Jesus. Scholars agree that even Josephus (the earliest non scriptural source we have) was at the most 4 years old when Christ was Crucified.

Perhaps @Gray will explain what he means -- I hope so!

[bluebell]

13 minutes ago, CV75 said:

I share that observation -- just trying to facilitate the conversation...!

Who in that time and place might be recording Jesus' teachings from a non-religious perspective?

I know.  I was agreeing with you.

[stemelbow]

18 hours ago, Gray said:

To continue an off-topic thought from another thread:

What's the best way to honor Jesus? To follow the gospel he most likely taught? That is to say, the gospel of good works and of distributive justice culminating in the eschaton. Or to follow the theologies that were developed after his death about salvation through belief in Jesus and Jesus' divine status?

As someone coming from a Restoration tradition, my inclination is to go back to the source. There are of course counter arguments to that too. What makes the source better than things that came later? And so on.

I'm not going to flat out say Jesus thought this or that. From my understanding of the scholarship I think the following is reasonable, although not irrefutable by any means.

• May or may not have considered himself to be the Messiah - probably considered to be that by his disciples in Jesus' lifetime
• Was himself a disciple of John the Baptist, until John was murdered
• Likely born in Nazareth, no miraculous birth
• Likely did not think of himself as divine (whether that means God, son of God, an exalted angel, or some kind of figurative stand-in for God) . Almost certainly was not viewed as divine by his disciples until after his death - they began to see him that way in retrospect. Atonement theology also came about in retrospect.
• His family probably thought he was crazy
• Was as much a religious teacher as he was a non-violent activist against collaboration with Rome (as opposed to his more violent contemporaries)
• Was probably known as a healer/miracle worker
• Came from an area with a lot of gentile presence, embraced people considered to be ritually unclean
• Expected the eschaton to come soon, where God, in collaboration with humanity, would right all wrongs, giving justice to the poor and afflicted, and humbling the wicked/wealthy (God being the father or "householder" of humanity)
• Did some kind of demonstration in Jerusalem that resulted in his death
• Probably no witnesses among the disciples to his death
• Empty tomb story probably invented later
• The disciples had some kind of transcendent experience where they came to believe that God had raised/vindicated Jesus - and others who were not disciples, including Paul

For the sake of argument, let's say Jesus considered himself to be a prophet, not the son of God in any literal sense, and had no awareness of anything like the atonement or his own cosmic importance. That does not mean that he wasn't in fact the son of God, that his death didn't atone for this sins of the world, etc. Jesus can in fact be those things. That question outside the bounds of history and into the area of faith.

But I have to think, the traditional theological Jesus has swallowed up the historical Jesus. I feel a great sense of loss at the thought.

What a tragedy! Jesus' message gets lost behind these notions of divinity and atonement and Christology and theology. But in a sense they still work in leading us to the historical Jesus, but only in metaphor. Yes, he was divine - in that the divinity of God was visible in his teachings and his life. God is made manifest in the life of Jesus, in a very first century kind of notion. Yes, he gave up his life - not as a sacrifice for sin, but in order to advance the cause of justice in an unjust world. "Sacrifice for sin" almost works as a metaphor for the same thing, so long as we're not talking about penal substitution. But the metaphors take on life of their own and end up obscuring the subject.

Even in considering the historical Jesus, we're not free from faith-based proclamations. We can talk about probability and make good arguments from the text and the historical context, but we'll never have a solid conclusion. It's like listening to echoes of echoes of echoes and trying to catch what was said. So I'll say I could be totally wrong, but this is how I've come to see Jesus.

Why do I care? Maybe because I've always been fascinated with the Jesus of the gospels, and maybe because I belong to a church that was started as an attempt try to restore the "original" Christianity that had gotten lost over the years. I love Jesus, so I want to understand him better. In so doing I think he's more impressive and miraculous to me as a human being than as a God. But am I understanding him? I hope so. But there are other interpretations too.

My point isn't to start a huge multi-tiered debate. I understand the appeal of more traditional theological views, and I see their value too. This is just something I've been thinking about a lot.

 

I would rep your post, but the man won't let me. ..still keeping me down after all these years.

I think your approach makes sense on a lot of levels.  I think the way things evolve in terms of teaching, as we develop, assumptions of the past become cemented truths of today.  And quite often it's somewhere in the spectrum of hard to impossible to question the previous assumptions without some significant amount of pushback, and in this case accusations of blasphemy, not that that happened here.  In my mind, the interesting ideas you share and seem to be drawn to are every bit as viable as others, even if there are other sources of scripture. 

 

[Gray]

18 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

In other words, let's just throw the restoration scriptures out the window in favor of so-called scholarship. Yes, let's just do the complete opposite of what the scriptures and the prophets, both living and dead, say we should do. I guess when one adopts the position that the Book of Mormon is work of pure fiction the many portions of Mormon's painstaking abridgment that totally and unequivocally debunk your understanding of who Jesus is  are made easy to just ignore. 

 

When your theology sets itself up in opposition to scholarship, it's probably not long for this world. Anti-intellectualism is not the way to God. 

[Gray]

18 hours ago, CV75 said:

 By what objective means does one human being merit more honor than another?

None at all, and that's not really my point. My point is to express sorrow that it appears to me that the man Yeshua appears to have been lost under layers and layers of evolving theology. From what we can infer about him, he appears to have been a man worth knowing and worth praising. 

[Gray]

18 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

You would honor the mortal over the divine?
A curious approach to religion.

Or another way to put it, the Jesus of history vs the Jesus of the mind. 

[Gray]

15 hours ago, bluebell said:

It doesn’t seem like it challenged the Romans as much as it supported their edicts.   

Take the Romans declaration that any jew could be forced to carry a soldiers belongings a mile, for example. Jesus telling Jews that they should do that and more, wouldn’t  really be subversive from the Roman point of view. 

But it would be from the Jewish perspective. 

I think it would be subversive in that it was a form of passive protest. 

[bluebell]

27 minutes ago, Gray said:

I think it would be subversive in that it was a form of passive protest. 

Would the romans have seen the beatitudes as a form of passive protest?

[CV75]

40 minutes ago, Gray said:

None at all, and that's not really my point. My point is to express sorrow that it appears to me that the man Yeshua appears to have been lost under layers and layers of evolving theology. From what we can infer about him, he appears to have been a man worth knowing and worth praising. 

From what you can infer about him, what do you think he would say about the worth to you of knowing and praising him?

[hope_for_things]

20 hours ago, Gray said:

For the sake of argument, let's say Jesus considered himself to be a prophet, not the son of God in any literal sense, and had no awareness of anything like the atonement or his own cosmic importance. That does not mean that he wasn't in fact the son of God, that his death didn't atone for this sins of the world, etc. Jesus can in fact be those things. That question outside the bounds of history and into the area of faith.

But I have to think, the traditional theological Jesus has swallowed up the historical Jesus. I feel a great sense of loss at the thought.

What a tragedy! Jesus' message gets lost behind these notions of divinity and atonement and Christology and theology. But in a sense they still work in leading us to the historical Jesus, but only in metaphor. Yes, he was divine - in that the divinity of God was visible in his teachings and his life. God is made manifest in the life of Jesus, in a very first century kind of notion. Yes, he gave up his life - not as a sacrifice for sin, but in order to advance the cause of justice in an unjust world. "Sacrifice for sin" almost works as a metaphor for the same thing, so long as we're not talking about penal substitution. But the metaphors take on life of their own and end up obscuring the subject.

Even in considering the historical Jesus, we're not free from faith-based proclamations. We can talk about probability and make good arguments from the text and the historical context, but we'll never have a solid conclusion. It's like listening to echoes of echoes of echoes and trying to catch what was said. So I'll say I could be totally wrong, but this is how I've come to see Jesus.

Why do I care? Maybe because I've always been fascinated with the Jesus of the gospels, and maybe because I belong to a church that was started as an attempt try to restore the "original" Christianity that had gotten lost over the years. I love Jesus, so I want to understand him better. In so doing I think he's more impressive and miraculous to me as a human being than as a God. But am I understanding him? I hope so. But there are other interpretations too.

My point isn't to start a huge multi-tiered debate. I understand the appeal of more traditional theological views, and I see their value too. This is just something I've been thinking about a lot.

Just had to thank you for the thought provoking post.  This is great stuff Gray, thanks so much for sharing.  

I largely agree with everything you've articulated here.  I do think we've lost much of the historical Jesus to the theology.  I just finished watching a little PBS documentary on Martin Luther and I'm preparing to read a newly written book on him as well.  I was fascinated at how much influence his writings have had on modern Christianity and how so many of our ideas about faith and doing good works have roots in this important period of time 500 years ago.  

As I've studied the early Christian church, I'm not sure we can capture an "original Christianity" because things were so fluid.  Paul's ideas were often in conflict the disciples of Jesus, and ideas about the divinity of Jesus were rapidly changing if we look at the dates of when the earliest texts were written and the differences in the four gospel accounts, there was so much change and innovation happening in the early movement.  Its all fascinating to learn about.

I think there is great value we can obtain by learning about how religious movements develop and applying those kinds of insights into how Mormonism has developed and how humans interact with each other.  For those that don't critically look at these things, I think they are missing out important understanding, but I don't think that makes them less good people.  I won't have time to study every possible subject out there in my lifetime, so there will be many areas of learning that I will be severely deficient in.  But that's okay, this is a wonderful life with many possible avenues to go down.  

[CV75]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

Just had to thank you for the thought provoking post.  This is great stuff Gray, thanks so much for sharing.  

I largely agree with everything you've articulated here.  I do think we've lost much of the historical Jesus to the theology.  I just finished watching a little PBS documentary on Martin Luther and I'm preparing to read a newly written book on him as well.  I was fascinated at how much influence his writings have had on modern Christianity and how so many of our ideas about faith and doing good works have roots in this important period of time 500 years ago.  

As I've studied the early Christian church, I'm not sure we can capture an "original Christianity" because things were so fluid.  Paul's ideas were often in conflict the disciples of Jesus, and ideas about the divinity of Jesus were rapidly changing if we look at the dates of when the earliest texts were written and the differences in the four gospel accounts, there was so much change and innovation happening in the early movement.  Its all fascinating to learn about.

I think there is great value we can obtain by learning about how religious movements develop and applying those kinds of insights into how Mormonism has developed and how humans interact with each other.  For those that don't critically look at these things, I think they are missing out important understanding, but I don't think that makes them less good people.  I won't have time to study every possible subject out there in my lifetime, so there will be many areas of learning that I will be severely deficient in.  But that's okay, this is a wonderful life with many possible avenues to go down.  

What, historically speaking was lost; what has been rediscovered inorder to tell?

When do you reliably pinpoint as the earliest that theological evolution began?

The Church has done a number of studies/articles on the development of the Christian faith and denominations, and these leading and contributing to those ideas essential for the Restoration to occur. From a Google Search that yielded many other results (lds.org only; I left out mormon.org and other blogs which are very useful):

https://www.lds.org/manual/church-history-in-the-fulness-of-times-student-manual/chapter-one-prelude-to-the-restoration?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1999/06/preparing-for-the-restoration?lang=eng

http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Protestant_Reformation

https://www.lds.org/friend/1984/10/martin-luther-defender-of-justice-and-seeker-of-truth?lang=eng

[hope_for_things]

18 minutes ago, CV75 said:

What, historically speaking was lost; what has been rediscovered inorder to tell?

When do you reliably pinpoint as the earliest that theological evolution began?

The Church has done a number of studies/articles on the development of the Christian faith and denominations, and these leading and contributing to those ideas essential for the Restoration to occur. From a Google Search that yielded many other results (lds.org only; I left out mormon.org and other blogs which are very useful):

https://www.lds.org/manual/church-history-in-the-fulness-of-times-student-manual/chapter-one-prelude-to-the-restoration?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1999/06/preparing-for-the-restoration?lang=eng

http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Protestant_Reformation

https://www.lds.org/friend/1984/10/martin-luther-defender-of-justice-and-seeker-of-truth?lang=eng

Gray should probably answer your questions because its his post, I will add my thoughts though since you're asking me.  

Whats lost is our perspective about the actual person that existed, largely we don't have much evidence that can point us to what Jesus said and did, we rely heavily on narratives created 2 to 3 generations after he lived that tell us stories for different theological purposes from that authors and the communities of worship, but not much about history by modern standards.    

Paul's writings are the earliest, and he never even met Jesus in life, so what he shares are his beliefs, but nothing about historical events.  

If you want to learn more about early Christian history, there are a lot of good books out there that try to bring biblical scholarship to a lay audience.  Those links you provided are very simplistic and align with a correlation narrative being promoted by the modern church, but have little to do with robust historiography. 

[CV75]

30 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Gray should probably answer your questions because its his post, I will add my thoughts though since you're asking me.  

Whats lost is our perspective about the actual person that existed, largely we don't have much evidence that can point us to what Jesus said and did, we rely heavily on narratives created 2 to 3 generations after he lived that tell us stories for different theological purposes from that authors and the communities of worship, but not much about history by modern standards.    

Paul's writings are the earliest, and he never even met Jesus in life, so what he shares are his beliefs, but nothing about historical events.  

If you want to learn more about early Christian history, there are a lot of good books out there that try to bring biblical scholarship to a lay audience.  Those links you provided are very simplistic and align with a correlation narrative being promoted by the modern church, but have little to do with robust historiography. 

Yes, I understand and agree with all of this.

I’m curious as to what passion a historical analysis of the individual would satisfy, given the paucity of information discovered or to be expected to be found about him, especially by modern standards. I’m picking up from your posts that it might shed some light on the broader issue of the development of Christian and other religions and theologies and their current states, but @Gray 's posts indicate it would satisfy a longing about a person he knows little about but suspects must be a wonderful individual.

The OP refers to Church membership and that a belief in her restored (and by extension I would include her continuingly revealed) Christianity requires an appreciation of the documented, “historical” and human side rather than the revealed spiritual side of Jesus’ personality, which any church could say is anything.

Edited September 28, 2017 by CV75

[Bobbieaware]

20 hours ago, Maidservant said:

Studying the New Testament deeply and in good faith as a religious document (not "scholarship") can bring someone to a much different conclusion than the restoration scriptures. I know that it has me.  It's very dismaying.  To understand one set of scriptures as having a much different meaning than another set.  Make a person try to figure out--what?  what are we supposed to be figuring out?

Please cite for me two or three examples of New Testament teachings that cause you concern because they differ from the doctrine taught in the restoration scriptures?

[hope_for_things]

3 hours ago, CV75 said:

Yes, I understand and agree with all of this.

I’m curious as to what passion a historical analysis of the individual would satisfy, given the paucity of information discovered or to be expected to be found about him, especially by modern standards. I’m picking up from your posts that it might shed some light on the broader issue of the development of Christian and other religions and theologies and their current states, but @Gray 's posts indicate it would satisfy a longing about a person he knows little about but suspects must be a wonderful individual.

The OP refers to Church membership and that a belief in her restored (and by extension I would include her continuingly revealed) Christianity requires an appreciation of the documented, “historical” and human side rather than the revealed spiritual side of Jesus’ personality, which any church could say is anything.

I think its hard to say much about the historical person of Jesus.  Even the earliest evidence is going to tell us more about the authors and conceptions of the Jesus than about the actual Jesus.  

One point I very much agree with Gray on, and I think this is important to note is that there are two different Jesus's.  One is the Jesus of history and we know very little about this person.  The second is the Jesus of faith, and that Jesus doesn't necessarily have anything in common with the Jesus of history.  This Jesus of faith is whatever communities of faith describe him to be.  His story is a narrative of religious myth that has beauty and depth and truth, but not necessarily anything historical.  People today assume history and faith are joined together when it comes to their conception of Jesus.  I don't think the evidence supports this idea at all.  The Jesus of Christian faiths is a construction, a tradition, a representation of the divine, but it doesn't have anything to do with the Jesus of history.  Does this make sense?  

Edited September 28, 2017 by hope_for_things

[Maidservant]

2 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

Please cite for me two or three examples of New Testament teachings that cause you concern because they differ from the doctrine taught in the restoration scriptures?

One is the principle of Manna, both in the Old and New Testaments.  It may be in the Book of Mormon and D & C also, I hadn't looked for it or not, but I would say that the complete opposite is taught in the Church at this time, i.e. saving up and similar modern ideas of the culture we are in, but the Church has not made a biblical response (in my opinion).  One can always say--hey, they can change it re continuing revelation.  Sure.  No problem.  Although I do think the principle of Manna is a deep principle of the universe, and it would help for people to be taught it and learn how to harness it and be blessed by it.

Two is the intention of Paul (whose letters are the earliest writing). When he created a "church", he was creating an alternative society (not a religious structure).  The word "church" was a word for a civil structure (like "assembly").  I actually think this IS what the LDS Church is doing, but in the subtext; because imagine if it was the foretext, they wouldn't get very far.  In other words, church is not about "spirituality" (what the heck is that?), it is about making choices to be a people peculiar and at peace with each other and not at war and not participate in oppression HERE AND NOW.  I also think that the Book of Mormon's main purpose is to give the whole world a message so that we won't slaughter each other.  It's not that the Church denies these things, but it's kind of lost in the shuffle instead of being central (in my opinion as was Mormon's purpose in putting the book together).  I was really excited about President Uchtdorf's recent message where he brought it out to love our enemies.  Also, it's not clear in the New Testament that Jesus organized a church, at least the likes of what we have today. He was very deliberate that he had a message.  Again--it can be changed.  Why not?  Change it.  But it's different.

Three.  Casting out of devils.  I actually agree with this change, but it is a change.  While casting out devils and unclean spirits is not unheard of in the modern Church, and the option is left open, in Jesus' time or in the time of whoever was putting the Gospels together, devils and unclean spirits were considered the root of all the body and spirit ills of human beings; including a person who was deaf and dumb was considered as having  "deaf and dumb spirit" causing the condition.

Four.  The misuse of the telestial-terrestrial-celestial device.  It is in the New Testament as a description to help people with their transformation.  (It's also written in the D & C from a similar perspective.)  These days, we've taken it as a mechanical reality of the afterlife.  Oops.

Five.  The coming of Jesus--2000 years later?  That was never the message.  Not Jesus and not Paul.  In fact, when Jesus' disciples asked him when the "end" was coming, they were asking him teleologically or chronologically about the literal end of the world, when it would be finished, he answered them with a play on words to gently correct them and used a completely different word and concept, meaning "culmination", meaning the culmination of the potential of mankind (time frame varying and available to anyone as soon as they were ready).  In English two different words are translated as the same word "end", but in Greek they are two different words and ideas, with the difference being CRITICAL to what Jesus was trying to teach.  Which we don't understand.  Paul also talked about the saints being lifted up in the clouds, but he seemed to be encouraging, possibly fudging a little, his people to pass through their enormous trials in the face of oppressive and violent experiences they were receiving (persecution) because they were trying to be different, because "it may hurt now but" there would be relief later.  That's my take.

Six.  The drinking of wine socially and with meals.  Jesus did.  We don't.  Can say "grape juice", but okay.  Also I'd be passed out in a gutter somewhere if I ever drank alcohol, so I am supremely grateful for the Word of Wisdom.  But it's different.

Seven.  Hebrews.  Unknown who wrote it.  Attributed to Paul.  Unlikely that it was him.  But if we really lived Hebrews--it's not anything like we are doing today.  Maybe that's okay, because it was written by someone who didn't know what they were talking about?  Nothing about Jesus really?  Just thrown in the mix?

Eight.  The esoteric understandings of a VIRGIN (WOMAN) giving birth to CHRIST.  I am wondering if all four of the gospels are wholly esoteric pieces.  Wholly.  Still thinking through that.  Meaning that Jesus Christ is ONLY a template and never was a person.  But there are some things that suggest otherwise, for example Paul referred to Master Joshua.  I don't think he invented that.

Nine.  Jesus taught a lot of stuff, but he didn't tell the Jews that they needed to be atoned with his sacrifice.  At least not with the reports we have.  John is the book that is written most from a Son of God/Lamb of God perspective (i.e. a lot of added/exclusive material in John)--but why John and not the others? (One might ask.)

Ten.  There never was a "Jesus Christ".  There may have been a Joshua or Yeshua.  The word "Jesus" and the word "Christ" are basically the same word; why are we repeating ourselves and inventing a new name for this person at the center of the New Testament?  Plus we are all Christs in our current church.  So in what way is Joshua different?

Eleven.  Paul called Jesus "Master".  That's what he considered him.  Any other ideas, where do we get them from?

So these are a few of my "open" questions that expect to keep learning on and receiving revelation on (there are others).  I LOVE the New Testament.  But there are a lot of things in it that diverge from our current cosmos and way of conducting things in the Church.  Cool beans.

The New Testament is what it is.  The Old Testament is what it is (which never once talks about an afterlife or salvation as an afterlife project).  The Book of Mormon is what it is.  Joseph Smith is who he is.  They are all important and perhaps all a piece of the puzzle.  But it doesn't fit together with smooth corners in a master narrative, as I can see at this point. There are deep mismatches, especially for the deep and sincere reader.  Perhaps that's where the real understanding is--the places where it doesn't match instead of the places where it does?  Perhaps the deep and sincere reader just needs to keep reading, and then more stuff will come into one.  But there are things that give pause.  Maybe some other readers method is to latch on to the Church's current metanarrative and just make it fit even versus what it says plainly, but it must mean something else.

I think there are things in the Book of Mormon we aren't teaching.  I think there are things in plain sight with the temple and the Sacrament that aren't what they seem to be at surface.  It's a little bewildering to learn deeper stuff even if eventually there is a blessing in it.

Anyway, you asked :).

Edited September 28, 2017 by Maidservant

[CV75]

34 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I think its hard to say much about the historical person of Jesus.  Even the earliest evidence is going to tell us more about the authors and conceptions of the Jesus than about the actual Jesus.  

One point I very much agree with Gray on, and I think this is important to note is that there are two different Jesus's.  One is the Jesus of history and we know very little about this person.  The second is the Jesus of faith, and that Jesus doesn't necessarily have anything in common with the Jesus of history.  This Jesus of faith is whatever communities of faith describe him to be.  His story is a narrative of religious myth that has beauty and depth and truth, but not necessarily anything historical.  People today assume history and faith are joined together when it comes to their conception of Jesus.  I don't think the evidence supports this idea at all.  The Jesus of Christian faiths is a construction, a tradition, a representation of the divine, but it doesn't have anything to do with the Jesus of history.  Does this make sense?  

I understand your viewpoint. I also think as long as it is generally recognized that there is an actual historical person identified as Jesus of Galilee/Nazareth, controversial Jewish preacher and religious leader (and any other debatable details, however little of him is accepted to be known through secular approaches), faith (expressed as the religious application of the history) and fact (provided by the history) legitimately join at some point and upon some point. It likewise makes sense that those who haven’t a religious faith yet acting upon a keen interest in the available history about him would express another kind of application of the history.

[Bobbieaware]

1 hour ago, Maidservant said:

One is the principle of Manna, both in the Old and New Testaments.  It may be in the Book of Mormon and D & C also, I hadn't looked for it or not, but I would say that the complete opposite is taught in the Church at this time, i.e. saving up and similar modern ideas of the culture we are in, but the Church has not made a biblical response (in my opinion).  One can always say--hey, they can change it re continuing revelation.  Sure.  No problem.  Although I do think the principle of Manna is a deep principle of the universe, and it would help for people to be taught it and learn how to harness it and be blessed by it.

Two is the intention of Paul (whose letters are the earliest writing). When he created a "church", he was creating an alternative society (not a religious structure).  The word "church" was a word for a civil structure (like "assembly").  I actually think this IS what the LDS Church is doing, but in the subtext; because imagine if it was the foretext, they wouldn't get very far.  In other words, church is not about "spirituality" (what the heck is that?), it is about making choices to be a people peculiar and at peace with each other and not at war and not participate in oppression HERE AND NOW.  I also think that the Book of Mormon's main purpose is to give the whole world a message so that we won't slaughter each other.  It's not that the Church denies these things, but it's kind of lost in the shuffle instead of being central (in my opinion as was Mormon's purpose in putting the book together).  I was really excited about President Uchtdorf's recent message where he brought it out to love our enemies.  Also, it's not clear in the New Testament that Jesus organized a church, at least the likes of what we have today. He was very deliberate that he had a message.  Again--it can be changed.  Why not?  Change it.  But it's different.

Three.  Casting out of devils.  I actually agree with this change, but it is a change.  While casting out devils and unclean spirits is not unheard of in the modern Church, and the option is left open, in Jesus' time or in the time of whoever was putting the Gospels together, devils and unclean spirits were considered the root of all the body and spirit ills of human beings; including a person who was deaf and dumb was considered as having  "deaf and dumb spirit" causing the condition.

Four.  The misuse of the telestial-terrestrial-celestial device.  It is in the New Testament as a description to help people with their transformation.  (It's also written in the D & C from a similar perspective.)  These days, we've taken it as a mechanical reality of the afterlife.  Oops.

Five.  The coming of Jesus--2000 years later?  That was never the message.  Not Jesus and not Paul.  In fact, when Jesus' disciples asked him when the "end" was coming, they were asking him teleologically or chronologically about the literal end of the world, when it would be finished, he answered them with a play on words to gently correct them and used a completely different word and concept, meaning "culmination", meaning the culmination of the potential of mankind (time frame varying and available to anyone as soon as they were ready).  In English two different words are translated as the same word "end", but in Greek they are two different words and ideas, with the difference being CRITICAL to what Jesus was trying to teach.  Which we don't understand.  Paul also talked about the saints being lifted up in the clouds, but he seemed to be encouraging, possibly fudging a little, his people to pass through their enormous trials in the face of oppressive and violent experiences they were receiving (persecution) because they were trying to be different, because "it may hurt now but" there would be relief later.  That's my take.

Six.  The drinking of wine socially and with meals.  Jesus did.  We don't.  Can say "grape juice", but okay.  Also I'd be passed out in a gutter somewhere if I ever drank alcohol, so I am supremely grateful for the Word of Wisdom.  But it's different.

Seven.  Hebrews.  Unknown who wrote it.  Attributed to Paul.  Unlikely that it was him.  But if we really lived Hebrews--it's not anything like we are doing today.  Maybe that's okay, because it was written by someone who didn't know what they were talking about?  Nothing about Jesus really?  Just thrown in the mix?

Eight.  The esoteric understandings of a VIRGIN (WOMAN) giving birth to CHRIST.  I am wondering if all four of the gospels are wholly esoteric pieces.  Wholly.  Still thinking through that.  Meaning that Jesus Christ is ONLY a template and never was a person.  But there are some things that suggest otherwise, for example Paul referred to Master Joshua.  I don't think he invented that.

Nine.  Jesus taught a lot of stuff, but he didn't tell the Jews that they needed to be atoned with his sacrifice.  At least not with the reports we have.  John is the book that is written most from a Son of God/Lamb of God perspective (i.e. a lot of added/exclusive material in John)--but why John and not the others? (One might ask.)

Ten.  There never was a "Jesus Christ".  There may have been a Joshua or Yeshua.  The word "Jesus" and the word "Christ" are basically the same word; why are we repeating ourselves and inventing a new name for this person at the center of the New Testament?  Plus we are all Christs in our current church.  So in what way is Joshua different?

Eleven.  Paul called Jesus "Master".  That's what he considered him.  Any other ideas, where do we get them from?

So these are a few of my "open" questions that expect to keep learning on and receiving revelation on (there are others).  I LOVE the New Testament.  But there are a lot of things in it that diverge from our current cosmos and way of conducting things in the Church.  Cool beans.

The New Testament is what it is.  The Old Testament is what it is (which never once talks about an afterlife or salvation as an afterlife project).  The Book of Mormon is what it is.  Joseph Smith is who he is.  They are all important and perhaps all a piece of the puzzle.  But it doesn't fit together with smooth corners in a master narrative, as I can see at this point. There are deep mismatches, especially for the deep and sincere reader.  Perhaps that's where the real understanding is--the places where it doesn't match instead of the places where it does?  Perhaps the deep and sincere reader just needs to keep reading, and then more stuff will come into one.  But there are things that give pause.  Maybe some other readers method is to latch on to the Church's current metanarrative and just make it fit even versus what it says plainly, but it must mean something else.

I think there are things in the Book of Mormon we aren't teaching.  I think there are things in plain sight with the temple and the Sacrament that aren't what they seem to be at surface.  It's a little bewildering to learn deeper stuff even if eventually there is a blessing in it.

Anyway, you asked :).

I appreciate your response. But quite honestly, there are so many things here where I think you're terribly off base that I don't even want to spend time getting into each item because you should know better on your own. But I'll at least take the time to point out three of the errors.

1. Jesus (Joshua) is a contraction of  the expression "Jehovah is salvation" and the title Christ (Messiah) means the anointed King. So the name Jesus and the name Christ obviously do not mean the same thing. The two titles combine to mean "Jehovah is the Savior and anointed King."

2. Paul used many titles when referring to Christ, not just the title Master.  Do you really want me to waste my time going through Acts and all of Paul's epistles to catalog all the times Paul used names for Christ other than Master? Are you saying just because there may have been one occasion when Paul referred to Christ as Master (I actually can't find one) that we are supposed to just ignore all the other names and titles Paul used when speaking of the Christ? I don't get it.

3. Are you really serious when you say Christ "didn't tell the Jews that they needed to be atoned with his sacrifice"? I'm incredulous. Here's just one example of the many passages in the New Testament where Christ says otherwise:

27 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;

28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. (Matthew 26)

If you spent more time with the Book of Mormon, the sacred record given of God to man to clarify and amplify the Bible, you would be less likely to get stuck in the weeds. Are you a member of the LDS Church?

Edited September 28, 2017 by Bobbieaware

[Avatar4321]

seems odd to me to presume the historical Jesus is different than the real one

[Maidservant]

1 hour ago, Bobbieaware said:

I appreciate your response. But quite honestly, there are so many things here where I think you're terribly off base that I don't even want to spend time getting into each item because you should know better on your own. But I'll at least take the time to point out three of the errors.

1. Jesus (Joshua) is a contraction of  the expression "Jehovah is salvation" and the title Christ (Messiah) means the anointed King. So the name Jesus and the name Christ obviously do not mean the same thing. The two titles combine to mean "Jehovah is the Savior and anointed King."

Okay.  I'll study this again.  My recall had them as both meaning "anointed".

2. Paul used many titles when referring to Christ, not just the title Master.  Do you really want me to waste my time going through Acts and all of Paul's epistles to catalog all the times Paul used names for Christ other than Master? Are you saying just because there may have been one occasion when Paul referred to Christ as Master (I actually can't find one) that we are supposed to just ignore all the other names and titles Paul used when speaking of the Christ? I don't get it.

I was reading the Greek, not the English. Where the English word "Lord" is the meaning of "Master". Sorry.  And it is true I have studied only two of his letters in depth.  Haven't got to the other five.  And when I study, I read the Greek, not the English.  I do think there was development in Paul's teaching regarding the significance of Christ.  So I know it's not going to be the same thing he says all the time.  I'm actually looking forward to getting more of a bead on that.

3. Are you really serious when you say Christ "didn't tell the Jews that they needed to be atoned with his sacrifice"? I'm incredulous. Here's just one example of the many passages in the New Testament where Christ says otherwise:

27 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;

28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. (Matthew 26)

He wasn't talking to the Jews here.  He was talking to his twelve disciples.  He does seem to have given the disciples deeper information.  And I wouldn't necessarily say that this verse means what we think it means today.  For example, I really love "my blood of the new testament".  That is where I would be drawn to study first.  Also keeping in mind that he said this in the middle of a ritual.

And it's not many passages.  I reviewed the entire four gospels before answering you, looking for atonement scriptures.  There were a few (and positioned in the same spot in the narrative for the 3 gospels; as I mentioned before, John is a whole other ballgame.) and the few were, again, even less clear than this one.  I did miss this one, though, so thanks. I'll study it more.

1 hour ago, Bobbieaware said:

If you spent more time with the Book of Mormon, the sacred record given of God to man to clarify and amplify the Bible, you would be less likely to get stuck in the weeds. Are you a member of the LDS Church?

I shared my questions with you, not my conclusions (which I don't have yet; it's an ongoing process).  I won't be doing that again with you, as you are not very gentle with me, and I'm not into conflict (P.S. you scare me).  These things are very close to my heart and I don't take them separately from the other things in the gospel. So if you are going to mock my heart, then bless you, but I'm not going to stand target.  Also know that you are safe from me, I won't mock or judge you.   I trust you with your own learning and your own understanding and the blessings you receive from it.  It's obvious that you have a beautiful passion for what you believe, Bobbie, not to mention a steadfast testimony of Christ.

No doubt I could spend more time with The Book of Mormon, as anyone could, and as it has a very special spirit.  But I also pretty  much have the entire Book of Mormon in my head, even more so than the New Testament.  Atonement is everywhere in the Book of Mormon (although not always the same kind).  In fact, I take the Book of Mormon so seriously that I realize it is a development of the gospel that took place historically independently than the developments that Jesus found himself born into and engaged with and challenged and confirmed.  (And then seeded in the new world when he came to Bountiful.)  The Book of Mormon is also just that--the Book of MORMON.  I'm so unutterably impressed by Mormon and what it was he wanted to say to our day and prepared a whole book about it, drawing upon the scriptures and history he had access to, as well as his own story; so that we wouldn't end up like his bloodthirsty society.  Also the transmission of the Book of Mormon is very different than the transmission of the New Testament.  The Book of Mormon has a revelatory provenance.  I'm not so sure The New Testament does (but another question, NOT a conclusion).

I am, yes.

[Calm]

Maidservant, what do you think about the command to gather twice as much manna on the day before the Sabbath?  And what happened to those who both gathered too much or too little?  What is the implication of preparation when the Lord commands and relying on him to provide when he commands to do so?

[RevTestament]

8 hours ago, Maidservant said:

Four.  The misuse of the telestial-terrestrial-celestial device.  It is in the New Testament as a description to help people with their transformation.  (It's also written in the D & C from a similar perspective.)  These days, we've taken it as a mechanical reality of the afterlife.  Oops.

Hi, Maidservant. I am going to try responding to a couple of things, but I am not sure what you mean by this.

Quote

Five.  The coming of Jesus--2000 years later?  That was never the message.  Not Jesus and not Paul.  In fact, when Jesus' disciples asked him when the "end" was coming, they were asking him teleologically or chronologically about the literal end of the world, when it would be finished, he answered them with a play on words to gently correct them and used a completely different word and concept, meaning "culmination", meaning the culmination of the potential of mankind (time frame varying and available to anyone as soon as they were ready).  In English two different words are translated as the same word "end", but in Greek they are two different words and ideas, with the difference being CRITICAL to what Jesus was trying to teach.  Which we don't understand.  Paul also talked about the saints being lifted up in the clouds, but he seemed to be encouraging, possibly fudging a little, his people to pass through their enormous trials in the face of oppressive and violent experiences they were receiving (persecution) because they were trying to be different, because "it may hurt now but" there would be relief later.  That's my take.

I think you have hit an important point here, but I don't really understand your concern. Are we not to teach of the "second coming?" What specific scriptures are you speaking of, and what do you understand Yeshua is trying to teach differently than the apostles were asking?

As for Paul - try comparing that to D&C 88:93-8. While you may not hear that taught, it is certainly in the restoration scriptures.

Quote

Six.  The drinking of wine socially and with meals.  Jesus did.  We don't.  Can say "grape juice", but okay.  Also I'd be passed out in a gutter somewhere if I ever drank alcohol, so I am supremely grateful for the Word of Wisdom.  But it's different.

I don't really see any importance to this difference. In Yeshua's day there were no refrigerators, and your usual choices for safe drink was fresh spring water, beer or wine. I imagine they had other fresh beverages, but they had to be fresh. Today we don't have that problem - we can keep grape juice in the fridge up to 2 weeks, milk, and all other kinds of beverages. Today, our society lacks a lot of restraint, and the Bible does not speak well of drunkenness.

Quote

Seven.  Hebrews.  Unknown who wrote it.  Attributed to Paul.  Unlikely that it was him.  But if we really lived Hebrews--it's not anything like we are doing today.  Maybe that's okay, because it was written by someone who didn't know what they were talking about?  Nothing about Jesus really?  Just thrown in the mix?

I believe Hebrews is well presented in the restored gospel. You just don't hear much about it. But it teaches what the oracles are. Hebrews teaches about the begotten nature of Yeshua. This is a key point, so I don't think you can say that it doesn't teach of Jesus. Esp refer to chap 1 and Chap 5.

Quote

Nine.  Jesus taught a lot of stuff, but he didn't tell the Jews that they needed to be atoned with his sacrifice.  At least not with the reports we have.  John is the book that is written most from a Son of God/Lamb of God perspective (i.e. a lot of added/exclusive material in John)--but why John and not the others? (One might ask.)

I think you are right that Yeshua didn't teach it directly to the crowds, but He did teach it in parable form. These He expounded to His disciples and then intonated that the mysteries of the kingdom were not given to the Jews as a whole yet.

Quote

Ten.  There never was a "Jesus Christ".  There may have been a Joshua or Yeshua.  The word "Jesus" and the word "Christ" are basically the same word; why are we repeating ourselves and inventing a new name for this person at the center of the New Testament?  Plus we are all Christs in our current church.  So in what way is Joshua different?

I have to echo Bobbie that Jesus and Christ are not the same word. Jesus is really a made up word since the Aramaic had no hard J sound. But the same with Joshua. The best transliteration appears to be Yahoshua. The name was shortened after the Jews adopted the Aramaic to Yeshua, but still meant YHWH saves. Perhaps what you were thinking is that Christ is the same as the Hebrew Messiach? Christ is the English version of the Greek Christos. All these mean "annointed." There were prior Messiachs in the OT - one was Cyrus the Great. Yahoshua was a name and Christ is a title, and they do have different meanings.

Quote

Eleven.  Paul called Jesus "Master".  That's what he considered him.  Any other ideas, where do we get them from?

Master was the same as Lord. The Greek NT eschews the use of YHWH - probably because of the Jews superstition about the name at the time. So we get Master and common lord instead. However, the Peshitta NT does use the Syriac equivalent to YHWH of "Marya" with respect to Yeshua.

Quote

So these are a few of my "open" questions that expect to keep learning on and receiving revelation on (there are others).  I LOVE the New Testament.  But there are a lot of things in it that diverge from our current cosmos and way of conducting things in the Church.  Cool beans.

I don't think there are as many as you seem to believe, but I think the D&C are replete with references to the NT. It saddens me that other churches get the idea that the Church somehow discounts the NT. I think the Book of Mormon makes it clear that the record of the apostles given us is a keystone.

Edited September 29, 2017 by RevTestament

[Gray]

On 9/27/2017 at 4:38 PM, bluebell said:

So these are my questions from reading the OP-

1)  How can we separate Jesus' teachings into 'mostly likely taught' and 'theologies developed after his death'?  All we have to go by, as far as the teachings of Jesus, are religious writings written either before or after His death.  

All of our sources come after Jesus of course. Reconstructing the historical Jesus is based on a look at sources through the lens of higher criticism. For example, Mark is the first gospel, so we can take a look at the things Luke and Matthew copied from Mark, and what they changed, to see how Christian theology was evolving. We can take a look at the earlier "Q" source (the common material between Mat/Luke not copied from Mark), which didn't have a resurrection theology, but instead a kind of wisdom theology.

 

On 9/27/2017 at 4:38 PM, bluebell said:

2)  What makes one source more 'the source' than another source?  Why is the NT better than the D&C, for example?

From a historical standpoint? The D&C dates from the 19th century. Most of the NT dates from the 1st century.

 

On 9/27/2017 at 4:38 PM, bluebell said:

3)  Also, you said "What a tragedy! Jesus' message gets lost behind these notions of divinity and atonement and Christology and theology."  Is there any reason we should assume that Jesus' message does not include notions of divinity and Atonement?

 

We see that those kinds of claims get amplified by later sources, but seem mostly absent from earlier sources. And of course the major theme in Mark is that the apostles had no idea that Jesus was really divine. So if Jesus was divine, he kept it totally to himself. That indicates that this idea came about only after he died.

 

On 9/27/2017 at 4:38 PM, bluebell said:

 

4)  What evidence is there that the historical Jesus is not the same as the theological Jesus?

Some of the methodological issues are summarized here:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2m7I4WEoso

 

[Atheist Mormon]

On 9/27/2017 at 2:44 PM, Gray said:

To continue an off-topic thought from another thread:

What's the best way to honor Jesus? To follow the gospel he most likely taught? That is to say, the gospel of good works and of distributive justice culminating in the eschaton. Or to follow the theologies that were developed after his death about salvation through belief in Jesus and Jesus' divine status?

As someone coming from a Restoration tradition, my inclination is to go back to the source. There are of course counter arguments to that too. What makes the source better than things that came later? And so on.

I'm not going to flat out say Jesus thought this or that. From my understanding of the scholarship I think the following is reasonable, although not irrefutable by any means.

• May or may not have considered himself to be the Messiah - probably considered to be that by his disciples in Jesus' lifetime
• Was himself a disciple of John the Baptist, until John was murdered
• Likely born in Nazareth, no miraculous birth
• Likely did not think of himself as divine (whether that means God, son of God, an exalted angel, or some kind of figurative stand-in for God) . Almost certainly was not viewed as divine by his disciples until after his death - they began to see him that way in retrospect. Atonement theology also came about in retrospect.
• His family probably thought he was crazy
• Was as much a religious teacher as he was a non-violent activist against collaboration with Rome (as opposed to his more violent contemporaries)
• Was probably known as a healer/miracle worker
• Came from an area with a lot of gentile presence, embraced people considered to be ritually unclean
• Expected the eschaton to come soon, where God, in collaboration with humanity, would right all wrongs, giving justice to the poor and afflicted, and humbling the wicked/wealthy (God being the father or "householder" of humanity)
• Did some kind of demonstration in Jerusalem that resulted in his death
• Probably no witnesses among the disciples to his death
• Empty tomb story probably invented later
• The disciples had some kind of transcendent experience where they came to believe that God had raised/vindicated Jesus - and others who were not disciples, including Paul

For the sake of argument, let's say Jesus considered himself to be a prophet, not the son of God in any literal sense, and had no awareness of anything like the atonement or his own cosmic importance. That does not mean that he wasn't in fact the son of God, that his death didn't atone for this sins of the world, etc. Jesus can in fact be those things. That question outside the bounds of history and into the area of faith.

But I have to think, the traditional theological Jesus has swallowed up the historical Jesus. I feel a great sense of loss at the thought.

What a tragedy! Jesus' message gets lost behind these notions of divinity and atonement and Christology and theology. But in a sense they still work in leading us to the historical Jesus, but only in metaphor. Yes, he was divine - in that the divinity of God was visible in his teachings and his life. God is made manifest in the life of Jesus, in a very first century kind of notion. Yes, he gave up his life - not as a sacrifice for sin, but in order to advance the cause of justice in an unjust world. "Sacrifice for sin" almost works as a metaphor for the same thing, so long as we're not talking about penal substitution. But the metaphors take on life of their own and end up obscuring the subject.

Even in considering the historical Jesus, we're not free from faith-based proclamations. We can talk about probability and make good arguments from the text and the historical context, but we'll never have a solid conclusion. It's like listening to echoes of echoes of echoes and trying to catch what was said. So I'll say I could be totally wrong, but this is how I've come to see Jesus.

Why do I care? Maybe because I've always been fascinated with the Jesus of the gospels, and maybe because I belong to a church that was started as an attempt try to restore the "original" Christianity that had gotten lost over the years. I love Jesus, so I want to understand him better. In so doing I think he's more impressive and miraculous to me as a human being than as a God. But am I understanding him? I hope so. But there are other interpretations too.

My point isn't to start a huge multi-tiered debate. I understand the appeal of more traditional theological views, and I see their value too. This is just something I've been thinking about a lot.

 

You are one step close to call Jesus that He was a mythical figure, which is my perspective also.