Ballard caught in the act, lying

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_huckelberry
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Re: Ballard caught in the act, lying

Post by _huckelberry »

Fence Sitter wrote:


yes, like a lot of other similar apocalyptic prophets from the same time, or even prophets in general, Jesus was just wrong about what was going to happen in the near future. When we know it is Jesus actually speaking, as opposed to a future redactor, I do not believe he ever talks as if he were speaking to future generations, but of course that is a dispute that is been going on since Albert Switzer and even before. See The Quest of the Historical Jesus



That's because by the time people actually wrote down what he said, it was clear he was wrong about when and where the Kingdom of God was going to happen or be so they had to change it.


Fence Sitter, I think there is a distinct possibility that Jesus was wrong about the timing. I do not find that a big detraction from Jesus and it appears that first century Christians did not either. Though I believe the traditional incarnation doctrine I do not at all believe Jesus was living his life knowing everything. Instead he made his way by learning observing and trying to understand like the rest of us. I find the idea of Jesus being other than that absurd.

If Jesus did not know everything about the coming of the Kingdom of God he was searching out its meaning and how it could come to be. Different Jewish prophets would have some variations in their understanding of how their hope worked. In general they would be trying to answer how is the will of God to be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Though Jesus had a number of things to say about that the beatitudes are a very good summary. I cannot imagine trying to compress those powerful living suggestions into a ticket to some heavenly kingdom. People find it much more useful as an ongoing living project.

In those terms it is quite possible to think of the completion Jesus spoke of as soon to be his crucifixion. However I do not know if that was all that Jesus was thinking of at the time. Perhaps he was finding out on the way.

In Schweizer's summary: "But in reality that which is eternal in the words of Jesus is due to the very fact that they are based on an eschatological worldview and contain the expression of a mind for which the contemporary world with its historical and social circumstances no longer had an existence. They are appropriate therefore to any world, for in every world they raise the man who dares to meet their challenge and does not turn and twist them into meaninglessness ... making him inwardly free so that he is fitted to be in his own world and in his own time, a simple channel for the of the power of Jesus."
_Physics Guy
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Re: Ballard caught in the act, lying

Post by _Physics Guy »

Fence Sitter wrote:When we know it is Jesus actually speaking, as opposed to a future redactor, I do not believe he ever talks as if he were speaking to future generations ...

Insofar as we ever actually know that it is Jesus speaking, no doubt that is true, but I think it's mostly a tautology.

One of the few good reasons for being sure that a statement was from Jesus as opposed to later editors is if the statement would be of no interest for later generations, because in that case it's hard to see why any later editor would have bothered to insert it, and hence the only likely reason for such a statement to have been preserved is that people at the time really thought Jesus had said it. So sure, if all you care about is finding statement about which you can be most sure that Jesus really said them, the principle of no-later-interest is a good one. But to turn around and then say that we know he only spoke for contemporaries, because none of the statements known to be his were of any later interest, is a misunderstanding of the logic involved.

Albert Einstein said a lot about physics, but all the best things he said have become part of the science, and lots of later physicists have also said them and will likely go on saying them. If records become scarce for future historians, they'll have a hard time pinning down which statements about physics definitely go back to Einstein and which ones were only made later. The best rule for telling this may well be to favor the statements that are known, in that future day, to be wrong, since those will be the statements that later physicists would have known not to make. So all the statements that future historians will be most sure were made by Einstein will be mistakes. It will still be quite wrong to imagine that Einstein was always wrong about physics.
_honorentheos
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Re: Ballard caught in the act, lying

Post by _honorentheos »

The issue I see with the above is that both Mormonism and Scientology are good examples of religions that have evolved to emphasize, deemphasize and reinvent themselves according to the needs of the time. And that's not a lot of time. Sure, the foundation is laid by the originator, but let's not forget - Mormonism is a late reinvention of Christianity that succeeded. And there have been countless reinventions of Christianity. Including in the first century CE. The processes that filter out the ones that fail to provide cultural/societal value may define a type of truth one can say applies to said beliefs and their accompanying ritual/norms. But it has no bearing on their historical accuracy.

In this case, other than one having accepted that the historical Jesus is also the Christ, what reason is there to say the sayings of Jesus were intended for an audience beyond the immediate people of the promise? Can one examine this question independent of ones view of the Jesus of history? Is it reasonable to assume that he was a son of God, resurrected into divine glory? Hmm. And if not, then why would he speak to future generations if he believes in the imminent arrival of The Son of Man as described in Mark? I don't know.
The world is always full of the sound of waves..but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it's depth?
~ Eiji Yoshikawa
_Physics Guy
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Re: Ballard caught in the act, lying

Post by _Physics Guy »

I don't think many people specifically address the distant future as opposed to the present, but I think some people do feel that they have eternal truths to convey to everyone. They start with their contemporaries but think of them as being just the beginning.

A message about an imminent end to history is by definition not an eternal truth, however. So in Jesus's case the question is just how much of his message was about the imminent eschaton. I'm not a scholar in relevant field here, but from my understanding of the limited nature of the evidence I find it hard to imagine that scholars can spin any golden certainties out of such a small amount of straw. If apocalyptic prophets were a thing in Jesus's time, then one could suppose that he was basically one of them, but if apocalyptic was in the air in his time then to me this would also mean that Jesus's message might easily have acquired an apocalyptic spin in transmission.

The texts we have are a mix of things that sound apocalyptic and things that don't. It's kind of like one of those bistable images. Squint one way and it's a vase; look again and it's faces.
_huckelberry
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Re: Ballard caught in the act, lying

Post by _huckelberry »

honorentheos wrote:
In this case, other than one having accepted that the historical Jesus is also the Christ, what reason is there to say the sayings of Jesus were intended for an audience beyond the immediate people of the promise? Can one examine this question independent of ones view of the Jesus of history? Is it reasonable to assume that he was a son of God, resurrected into divine glory? Hmm. And if not, then why would he speak to future generations if he believes in the imminent arrival of The Son of Man as described in Mark? I don't know.


Honorentheos, I may be missing your intention here. I think Physics Guy has been clear that Jesus would have been speaking to the people living with him not some future people he did not know. I am sure I was agreeing with that idea as well. I am not sure if anybody is disagreeing.

Later people found themselves in possession of this words and have made of that what they wanted or could. You have pointed out a primary reason why they cannot ask what the historical fact is of what Jesus meant to tell them. Historically he didn't mean to tell them , he was speaking to the people of his time.
.....
Addition to try and clarify what I was thinking.

I do not think we have any way of knowing what Jesus meant in his own mind when speaking. We can consider what other people of that time thought but that does not guarantee that Jesus thought the same. We can have a clearer idea of what Jesus words have meant to others.His words have made people think and in a sense the effect is their historic meaning. You and I are included in that expanding meaning of his words as they affect us as well.
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