Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: LVRON@saturn.lerc.nasa.gov (Ron Graham) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Questions on who Jesus is (was "Missed point") Message-ID: Date: 3 Jan 91 08:47:27 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 77 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , you write... >djo@pacbell.com (Dan'l DanehyOakes) writes: >> IT IS LOGICALLY INFEASIBLE TO ACCEPT JESUS AS "JUST A TEACHER." >> First, all we know about Him is what the Gospels say.... [The Gospels] >> have him claiming, repeatedly, to be the Savior, the Son of God, the >> Son of Man, etc. >And there are problems with reading these as claims to divinity. >I don't recall that the term "savior" appears in any of the Gospels. Then you forgot the Christmas story. "Unto you is born this day in Bethlehem a saviour, which is Christ the Lord." [...] >"Son of Man" is a code phrase for the messiah, and the term "Christ" is >greek for "messiah". Although there were various views on the nature of >the messianic role, the messiah (literally "the anointed one," which in >itself implies a human *called into* service) was not a divinity. Jesus >probably saw himself as the messiah, which suggests that he did not >believe himself to be divine. The term "belief," if it applies, also suggests Christ would not be divine. If he is God in the flesh, he doesn't need to "believe" it. He knows it. >This issue is more complex than I have time to do justice to, but in >summary, the Gospels do not unambiguously claim that Jesus was divine. But Jesus does o affirm his one-ness with the Father; o receive worship; o claim the ability to command angels; etc. etc. If these are not aspects held in combination uniquely by divinity, I would be beholden to see other examples. The way around this argument is to recognize that these were only claims, not evidence. Of course, folks who make such claims without evidence are charlatans, and do not qualify as "great moral teachers." [...] >Based upon the evidence of the Gospels, it is fairly certain that Jesus >was crucified. But all scientific study of death indicates that once >somebody dies, they don't come back to life. Perhaps Jesus died on >the cross, perhaps he didn't; this is something that must be decided >(if possible) using the limited historical evidence available. But no >historian, thinking the way historians customarily think, would even >consider the possibility that Jesus died and came back to life. This brings up an interesting question, IMPO. Do historians, thinking the way they customarily do, see Christ as important in any way? If so, why? My line of thinking is, without the resurrection Christianity has nothing to offer. Happy holidays. RG [It's my impression that historians (when operating professionally, i.e. not as a matter of personal faith) do not believe that the NT story can be dealt with using the tools of history. History can deal with the development of the Church. Obviously Christ is important to history because of the importance of the Christian Church. But Jesus' resurrection and the NT witness as a whole are not events that historians can deal with. They are claimed to be in effect super- historical, i.e. not to follow the normal laws of history. So either a historian has to reject it on principle, or simply refuse to deal with it and say "I can talk about the history of the Church, but the Resurrection is a matter of faith, not history". I'm not terribly interested in duplicating here the discussion on historical testability of Christian that went on recently in talk.religion.misc. There are plenty of Christians who believe there is good evidence for Christianity. But I think by and large professional historians adopt the view I just described, and that's what you asked. --clh]