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Post by timoneill on Jul 8, 2012 3:47:46 GMT
There seems to be considerable willingness on here to overlook the evidence of Jewish opposition to Jesus devotion from a very early period. Hurtado - How on Earth did Jesus become a God? chapter 7 (Early Jewish Opposition to Jesus-Devotion) is very instructive e.g. on "Jesus-Devotion and Jewish Opposition in Mark": The author of GMark must have expected his readers to recognize the validity of the dominical warning about being brought before Jewish councils and synagogues (13:9) through their knowledge of such experiences. Thus, arraignments of Jewish Christians before Jewish authorities must be dated no later than the probable time of the writing of Mark’s Gospel ca.65-72 C.E. In fact, given that the Jewish-Christian heritage of Mark’s readers seems to lie in their past and that the intended readership is likely to have been heavily Gentile in make-up, the experiences of being arraigned before synagogue authorities on charges of blasphemy must derive from some time before the date of GMark.
That is , even before the expulsion of the Johannine Jewish Christians from their synagogues…, Christian Jews were probably experiencing the sort of condemnations for blasphemy reflected in the Markan narrative of Jesus’ Sanhedrin trial. To be sure these synagogue actions were localised and ad hoc, whereas in the post 70 C.E. period there appears to have been an effort toward a more consistently applied sanction against Jewish Christians. The Jesus devotion manifest in the Markan Sanhedrin trial narrative is sufficient to have brought Jewish charges of blasphemy. As J Marcus has argued, Mark 14:61-62 is to be taken as a claim to “participation in God’s cosmic lordship” and an “approach to equality with God”. Such an exaltation of a human figure probably drew fire from scrupulous Jews as compromising “the incommensurateness and unity of God”.
If they were being "brought before Jewish councils and synagogues" for the highly blasphemous claim that Jesus WAS God, we seem to have a curious lack of evidence that this was the case. As usual, Hurtado is reading his theological beliefs into the evidence. If they were claiming Jesus was Yahweh we'd see far more evidence of Jesus sect members being executed. Instead the overwhelming evidence is of them worshipping as devout Jews with other Jews and only occasional controversy over their claims that a crucified man was the Messiah.
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Post by sankari on Jul 8, 2012 6:30:03 GMT
sankari: No. Why do you ask? So what god did the people in the New Testament believe they were praying to when they prayed to Jesus? Zeus? They didn't believe they were praying to a god at all. Prayer is not equivalent to worship of a deity. This is one of the few things Catholics have got right. How many unambiguous examples of prayer to Jesus do we actually have in the NT? I think you'll be working hard to find more than two. John 14:14 suggests prayer to Jesus, but the text is disputed and some authorities omit the word 'me.' This reduces the verse to 'If you ask anything in my name, I will do it' and implies Jesus acts upon prayers that the Father receives in his name. This does not require Jesus to be the recipient of the prayer, nor even that he has heard it himself. Is it possible for Jesus to hear prayer? I believe so. After all, he received the Holy Spirit without measure (John 3:34); he is perfected and immortal (II Timothy 1:10, Revelation 1:18); he has been exalted to the Father's right hand (I Peter 3:22) and all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him (Matthew 28:18). Does this prove that he is God? Not at all. The capacity to hear believers' prayers indicates tremendous supernatural power, but it is still a long way short of omniscience (a quality that Jesus clearly lacks; see Matthew 24:36, Mark 11:12-14, Luke 2:52, John 11:34). In fact, there's an interesting OT passage which suggests that even angels might be able to hear prayer under certain circumstances. In Daniel 10:12-13, we have this: We can interpret the passage in two different ways. (a) Daniel had prayed to God, yet the angel says that 'Your words were heard; I have come in response to your words.' How can an angel respond to words he cannot hear, and why mention the reason for his delay if he was acting purely on God's instructions? The suggestion is that he heard Daniel's prayer and responded as soon as possible. We know that mortal men can read the minds of others when empowered with the Holy Spirit (e.g. Elisha in II Kings 5:26; Peter in Acts 5:3-9) and so too can angels (Genesis 18:12). (b) A more likely option is that God heard the words and told the angel to respond. If this is the case, we can say exactly the same for Jesus in John 14:14 (though compare with John 16:23, 'At that time you will ask me nothing. I tell you the solemn truth, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you'). Either way, neither the angel nor Jesus needs to be God in order to know believers' thoughts and respond to their prayers. The fact that prayer in Scripture is predominantly focused upon the Father should give us pause for thought. Jesus taught his disciples to pray directly to God (not to himself) and the apostle Paul routinely addresses his prayers to God through Jesus (e.g. Romans 16:27). This pattern is repeated many times throughout the NT. I believe there are arguable Scriptural precedents for praying to Jesus (e.g. Acts 1:24, II Corinthians 12:8) but they are very few in number and represent exceptions to the rule. Personally I feel it is important to follow the model laid down by Jesus himself and employed by the apostles, in which prayer is primarily directed to God (Luke 11:1-4), through Jesus (Jude 1:25). However, I also recognise that Jesus' current position of high priest and mediator allows us to approach him through prayer. Why is it obvious that praying to Jesus implies they believe they are praying to a god? No reason that I can see. After all, I pray to Jesus, and I don't believe he is God.
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Post by sankari on Jul 8, 2012 6:31:15 GMT
There seems to be considerable willingness on here to overlook the evidence of Jewish opposition to Jesus devotion from a very early period. That is simply not true. Firstly, Jewish opposition to Jesus devotion has been mentioned and addressed. It has never been ignored. Secondly, the devotion to Jesus that we find in the NT does not indicate that people believed him to be God. Thirdly, the Jews never accuse the Christians of believing that Jesus is God, let alone citing Christian devotion to Jesus as evidence of this.
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Post by sandwiches on Jul 8, 2012 14:27:52 GMT
To return to the opening post: www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3710b1e2-c422-11e1-9c1e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2020gqVPsDivine interventions Review by Karen Armstrong How the idea of Jesus was transformed in the early centuries of Christianity Christian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicaea (AD 30-325), by Geza Vermes, Allen Lane,
Interesting review which seems to infer that Vermes misses the point, or at least prefers to dwell on what suits his own cyclopic vision while ignoring that which does not (perhaps like some of the views on here with their slightly obsessive dwelling on whether the earliest Christians saw Jesus as Yahweh or The God of Israel). (Armstrong herself seems to have a very encompassing view of the Abrahamic faiths). However it was later articulated and however long it took to do so, it is a very subjective viewpoint to deny that the earliest (Jewish) Christians viewed Jesus as standing in a relationship to God and sharing divine attributes in a way that was unique in Jewish monotheism (as reflected in early Jewish opposition to Jesus-devotion). As Hurtado concludes the chapter (Early Jewish Opposition to Jesus Devotion) I referred to in my most recent post: "Whatever the intentions of the Christian Jews whose Jesus-Devotion elicited the opposition we have surveyed, it may be that Jewish religious opponents saw earlier and more clearly than the Jewish Jesus-devotees themselves that their devotion was a significant "mutation" in Jewish monotheistic practice."
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Post by fortigurn on Jul 8, 2012 19:29:37 GMT
However it was later articulated and however long it took to do so, it is a very subjective viewpoint to deny that the earliest (Jewish) Christians viewed Jesus as standing in a relationship to God and sharing divine attributes in a way that was unique in Jewish monotheism (as reflected in early Jewish opposition to Jesus-devotion). Relationship to God? No one is denying the earliest Jewish Christians viewed Jesus as standing in a relationship to God in a way that was unique in Jewish monotheism. Divine attributes, however, that's another matter. Which ones did you have in mind? The real issue is that if Jesus or his disciples, or his later apostles, or his later first century believers had believed and taught Jesus was God, there would be evidence for this in the earliest strata of Christian texts. This would have been a major departure from monotheism, and would have caused a firestorm among the Jewish opponents of Christianity. However, we see no evidence for this in the record.
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Post by sandwiches on Jul 8, 2012 21:05:46 GMT
The real issue is that if Jesus or his disciples, or his later apostles, or his later first century believers had believed and taught Jesus was God, there would be evidence for this in the earliest strata of Christian texts. This would have been a major departure from monotheism, and would have caused a firestorm among the Jewish opponents of Christianity. However, we see no evidence for this in the record. No evidence in the record of a firestorm? Not even in Acts and the story of Paul? Jewish opponents of the earliest Christianity certainly found something very highly objectionable in it. See for example Hurtado's review of Dunn's "Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?": larryhurtado.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/dunn-was-jesus-worshipped-review.pdfFor example, contra Dunn, Acts does not present the Jerusalem apostles as enjoying a fairly untroubled life, contrasted with Hellenist believers suffering persecution (e.g., the arrests and interrogations in 4:1-22 and 5:17-42, the latter account including a flogging, and the execution of James Zebedee and imprisonment of Peter in 12:1-5). More directly to the question about why Paul opposed Jewish believers, nowhere in Paul’s letters or Acts do we find a statement that Paul’s persecution of them was on account of their supposedly lax (or non-Pharisaic) Torah-observance, their association with Gentiles, or their critique of the Temple. Instead, Acts depicts Paul as proceeding against “all who call upon [Jesus’] name” (9:14), as “opposing the name of Jesus” (26:9), and as seeking “to make them blaspheme” (i.e., probably pronouncing a curse upon Jesus, 26:11). Moreover, nowhere does Paul say that his conversion was basically a capitulation to accepting a more relaxed Torah-observance, a more negative attitude toward the Temple, or more relaxed associations with Gentiles.11 Instead, he refers to the cognitive effect as a “revelation of God’s Son” (Gal. 1:15-16), and in Philip. 3:1- 11 he contrasts his former Torah-centric life with his present fervent devotion to Jesus. The Damascus Road experience did not convince Paul primarily to approve a relaxed halakha, but to change his view of Jesus. In my view, that also suggests a lot about what he had previously found objectionable in Jewish believers
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Post by fortigurn on Jul 9, 2012 2:00:30 GMT
No evidence in the record of a firestorm? No evidence of a firestorm caused by Jesus or his disciples, or his later apostles, or his later first century believers believing and teaching Jesus was God, no. Yes, Acts tells us us they found it objectionable that: * Christians wanted to change the customs handed down by Moses (Acts 6:14; 21:27-29) * Christians were saying salvation through the messiah was available to the Gentiles (Acts 21:27-29; 22:21-22) * The alleged messiah had been crucified (Acts 17:1-5) Christians were also accused of defiling the temple and causing riots (Acts 24:5-6). Paul says the stumblingblock of the Jews was the crucifixion of the messiah (1 Corinthians 1:23). Absent from this list of objections is any suggestion that Christians believed and taught Jesus was God. This is a curious omission if this is what Christians really believed and taught.
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Post by sandwiches on Jul 11, 2012 9:24:32 GMT
Interesting review by Rowan Williams of Christian Beginnings by Geza Vermes: www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/11/christian-beginnings-geza-vermes-reviewRowan Williams finds a beautiful and magisterial early history still leaves some puzzles unsolvedBut some of the themes of an earlier scholarly generation recur. John's gospel has to be treated as a bit of an aberration – though Vermes rightly grants that we cannot write off John's language as simply the result of borrowing from non-Jewish sources. Many, if not most, scholars would be very cautious now about too simple a polarity between "Hebrew" and "Greek" styles of thinking. Again Vermes is inclined to see "Platonic" themes as one of the elements that work the alchemical change in Christianity that will make it unrecognisable to its founder. There is an assumption that the basic alteration is a matter of turning the faith that Jesus himself held into a faith about him
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Post by timoneill on Jul 11, 2012 11:36:12 GMT
Interesting review by Rowan Williams of Christian Beginnings by Geza Vermes: "There is an assumption that the basic alteration is a matter of turning the faith that Jesus himself held into a faith about him" [/i][/quote] And he makes that sound like this is an unwarranted "assumption". Does Williams have an "agenda" BTW? What does he do for a quid again? Oh yes, that's right ...
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Post by sandwiches on Jul 11, 2012 12:34:13 GMT
I guess Williams just fails to recognise that atheists have a monopoly on objectivity.
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Post by unkleE on Jul 11, 2012 12:58:48 GMT
What we see here is Jesus and God depicted as two completely different beings. Whatever we call that, it's not the trinity We still seem to be playing on different football fields. I have said (1) I don't believe the doctrine of the Trinity is in the NT, (2) it is possible for someone to believe Jesus is/was divine in nature without believing in the Trinity or even formulating a doctrine of how this could be, and (3) that is what it seems to me the evidence points to being the case with the disciples and the NT writers. But you seem to keep on agreeing with me on (1) and suggesting that this refutes (2) and (3), which of course it doesn't.
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Post by unkleE on Jul 11, 2012 13:00:20 GMT
Interesting review by Rowan Williams of Christian Beginnings by Geza Vermes: "There is an assumption that the basic alteration is a matter of turning the faith that Jesus himself held into a faith about him" [/i][/quote] And he makes that sound like this is an unwarranted "assumption". Does Williams have an "agenda" BTW? What does he do for a quid again? Oh yes, that's right ...[/quote] Unworthy. I guess Williams just fails to recognise that atheists have a monopoly on objectivity. A fair response.
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Post by timoneill on Jul 11, 2012 20:16:29 GMT
And he makes that sound like this is an unwarranted "assumption". Does Williams have an "agenda" BTW? What does he do for a quid again? Oh yes, that's right ... Unworthy. I guess Williams just fails to recognise that atheists have a monopoly on objectivity. A fair response. No, it isn't. I was referring to the original post in this thread where Vermes - an esteemed and highly respected scholar of the highest order who has worked for decades in a peer reviewed sphere - was accused of having "an agenda", as though he was Richard Carrier or PZ Myers. Vermes certainly has developed a consistent scholarly opinion on these matters, one shared by many, many other scholars and developed over years of careful thought, research and discussion at the highest level. To claim that this represents an "agenda" because it doesn't fit very comfortably with some people's fondly held religious convictions is petty to the point of being spiteful. This is not to say Vermes may not have his biases (we all do), but one of the things I like about him is that they are very hard to see. I have absolutely no idea whether he has a belief in God or not for example. What he doesn't seem to have is any hard and fast belief that would incline him towards confirmation bias on key points if that's where the evidence seems to point. And the point here is that we can't say that about Hurtado and we sure as hell can't say it about the Archbishop of Canterbury! As Mandy Rice Davies once said "Well, he would say that, wouldn't he."
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Post by unkleE on Jul 12, 2012 0:12:27 GMT
Tim, we can accuse anyone of bias, and we can think we know, but we can never know how much a person tries to be honest, not even ourselves I think. Both you and I know that the only way to criticise is to show the argument is poor, not simply assert that the person is biased. After all, non-believers are just as prone to bias as believers. If you want to disparage the integrity of someone, surely you owe us some very strong evidence.
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Post by timoneill on Jul 12, 2012 3:18:30 GMT
Tim, we can accuse anyone of bias, and we can think we know, but we can never know how much a person tries to be honest, not even ourselves I think. Both you and I know that the only way to criticise is to show the argument is poor, not simply assert that the person is biased. After all, non-believers are just as prone to bias as believers. If you want to disparage the integrity of someone, surely you owe us some very strong evidence. You seem to have missed my point entirely. I was objecting to the idea that a scholar of Vermes' calibre has an "agenda" because he has arrived at some (very solid and cogent) scholarly positions that some here find impossible to reconcile with their religious views. I disagree with Hurtado. And I happen to think his views *are* skewed by his faith. But I don't think or talk about him having an "agenda", let alone imply that he has not arrived at his position in good faith and after careful consideration of the evidence and counter arguments. I can respectfully disagree with him (and the archbishop), without resorting to that kind of dismissive pettiness. If we are talking about mere mere biases, then I've already noted that all scholars have them and good scholars try to work against them and be as objective as possible. But to try to dismiss a scholar's carefully determined position as being based on an "agenda" is really, really feeble.
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