Hi-
I have commented before in the nature of Jesus, and humanity's tendency to deify the numinous. A more expanded thought. To discuss any of this we must begin by not assuming the Bible is literally true. There area so many internal inconsistencies within the Bible I do not feel it is intellectually sustainable to maintain it is literal (of course some parts are, but not what we are about to talk about).
The gospels must be understood by their nature. They are not history, although they record certain historical events. Nor are they neutral- the name means good news, so there is no question about the authors' feelings about Jesus. Also, the style of the times was such as to create exalted childhoods for famous people, and also to deify them after death, and occaionally before. Understanding this, the gospel claims of virgin birth, infant worship and deity look a bit different.
By analogy, consider the battle of Gettysburg (a personal favorite, and one about which there is extensive primary source material available). If we read a southern military journal from 1910 (50 years after the battle, adn therefore approximately equivalent to the time differnce from Jesus' death to Mark), we would learn that 'both sides lost at Gettysburg'. We would also learn that Longstreet was to blame for the failure of Pickett's Charge, and that Lee was an invincible soldier felled by numbers, insubordination and starvation.
Of course, none of this is true. It is from a journal promoting a point of view. The potential for distortion in such writing has to be kept in mind, and that work compared to the works of the times. We would all laugh if there were a group worshipping the divinity of Lee, despite oblique claims from southern apologists. Not to say he was not a great general, or that his tactics and strategy are not worthy of admiration and study, but he's not a god, no matter what southern sympathizers may feel.
Claims of Jesus' divinity come either from other people's mouths (Peter, in the synoptics) or from John. Without question, John has a completely different point of view than the synoptics. In the synoptics, Jesus speaks in parables and short, pithy stories. He does not approach anyone, but responds when approached, the standard behavior of a sage or philosopher of the time. He speaks of his father, but without claims of divinity or uniqueness (the epithet 'son of man' is the equivalent of our speaking about ourselves in the third person). When others question divinity or make claims, he either tells them to be quiet, or turns the question into their statement (that's what YOU say- the emphasis is obviously mine, but gives the reply a sense that seems appropriate to the setting).
In John, Jesus makes repeated claims of divinity (the 7 I am staements), speaks in long discourses rather than pithy stories, and hasa much longer ministry whose details are in a completely different order. Despite these discrepancies, which make John seem to me, and others, as trying to make a point about belief, John is the main basis for the church today. Jesus is worshipped as God, something Jesus himself never did, with the theology based in John. I don/t feel this is reasonable or true, but mnore importantly, I don't think it is necessary.
Jesus' teachings are beautiful. The Sermon on the Mount is a thought-provoking collection of statements, and his parables are almost as arresting today as 2000 years ago. It is not necessary for a man to be a god simply to acknowledge he is filled by the spirit of God. When we assert Jesus is God two negative things happen. First, it slander both God and Man. God, because we worship a man. Man, because we can not acknowledge that flesh as weak as our own can be that numinous, removing the potential for the experience of God within our own flesh. Second, if Jesus is God, than all other religions become not alternate ways of seeing God, but simply wrong. This assertion removes the singularity of any epxerience of the divine- it becomes the basis of violence, prejudice and exclusion.
Is any of Jesus' teaching made more authoritative, or more meaningful by claims of divinity? I don't think so. Rather, it makes the beauty of his teachings inaccessible for all who are not prepared to acknowledge him as God.
Paradoxically then, I believe we can find greater truth by not insisting on biblical literality. We can act more numinously by not claiming a unique interaction with God and Man, and we can find God more easily by not claiming that God came to earth as one particular man. All this allows each of us to experience God uniquely, whether as a burning bush, fiery wheels, scalding scrolls, a still small voice, or a majestic presence within a church.
I have commented before in the nature of Jesus, and humanity's tendency to deify the numinous. A more expanded thought. To discuss any of this we must begin by not assuming the Bible is literally true. There area so many internal inconsistencies within the Bible I do not feel it is intellectually sustainable to maintain it is literal (of course some parts are, but not what we are about to talk about).
The gospels must be understood by their nature. They are not history, although they record certain historical events. Nor are they neutral- the name means good news, so there is no question about the authors' feelings about Jesus. Also, the style of the times was such as to create exalted childhoods for famous people, and also to deify them after death, and occaionally before. Understanding this, the gospel claims of virgin birth, infant worship and deity look a bit different.
By analogy, consider the battle of Gettysburg (a personal favorite, and one about which there is extensive primary source material available). If we read a southern military journal from 1910 (50 years after the battle, adn therefore approximately equivalent to the time differnce from Jesus' death to Mark), we would learn that 'both sides lost at Gettysburg'. We would also learn that Longstreet was to blame for the failure of Pickett's Charge, and that Lee was an invincible soldier felled by numbers, insubordination and starvation.
Of course, none of this is true. It is from a journal promoting a point of view. The potential for distortion in such writing has to be kept in mind, and that work compared to the works of the times. We would all laugh if there were a group worshipping the divinity of Lee, despite oblique claims from southern apologists. Not to say he was not a great general, or that his tactics and strategy are not worthy of admiration and study, but he's not a god, no matter what southern sympathizers may feel.
Claims of Jesus' divinity come either from other people's mouths (Peter, in the synoptics) or from John. Without question, John has a completely different point of view than the synoptics. In the synoptics, Jesus speaks in parables and short, pithy stories. He does not approach anyone, but responds when approached, the standard behavior of a sage or philosopher of the time. He speaks of his father, but without claims of divinity or uniqueness (the epithet 'son of man' is the equivalent of our speaking about ourselves in the third person). When others question divinity or make claims, he either tells them to be quiet, or turns the question into their statement (that's what YOU say- the emphasis is obviously mine, but gives the reply a sense that seems appropriate to the setting).
In John, Jesus makes repeated claims of divinity (the 7 I am staements), speaks in long discourses rather than pithy stories, and hasa much longer ministry whose details are in a completely different order. Despite these discrepancies, which make John seem to me, and others, as trying to make a point about belief, John is the main basis for the church today. Jesus is worshipped as God, something Jesus himself never did, with the theology based in John. I don/t feel this is reasonable or true, but mnore importantly, I don't think it is necessary.
Jesus' teachings are beautiful. The Sermon on the Mount is a thought-provoking collection of statements, and his parables are almost as arresting today as 2000 years ago. It is not necessary for a man to be a god simply to acknowledge he is filled by the spirit of God. When we assert Jesus is God two negative things happen. First, it slander both God and Man. God, because we worship a man. Man, because we can not acknowledge that flesh as weak as our own can be that numinous, removing the potential for the experience of God within our own flesh. Second, if Jesus is God, than all other religions become not alternate ways of seeing God, but simply wrong. This assertion removes the singularity of any epxerience of the divine- it becomes the basis of violence, prejudice and exclusion.
Is any of Jesus' teaching made more authoritative, or more meaningful by claims of divinity? I don't think so. Rather, it makes the beauty of his teachings inaccessible for all who are not prepared to acknowledge him as God.
Paradoxically then, I believe we can find greater truth by not insisting on biblical literality. We can act more numinously by not claiming a unique interaction with God and Man, and we can find God more easily by not claiming that God came to earth as one particular man. All this allows each of us to experience God uniquely, whether as a burning bush, fiery wheels, scalding scrolls, a still small voice, or a majestic presence within a church.
I am surprised that a hot topic like this has yet to receive any comments - perhaps because it was just posted yesterday? At any rate, it is an important topic to discuss. I'll start it off with a small clarification: it is true that the book of John is the GOSPEL most frequently used by the church today to make claims of divinity about Jesus. However, looking at the New Testament as a whole, the writings of Paul, Peter, John, and the author of Hebrews ("whoever she was" as one college professor of mine would say while sporting a devilish grin on his face) all promote the divinity of Jesus as well. Several of these writings (such as I Corinthians) date to within a few decades of the death of Jesus, so are earlier in composition than the gospel of John, which means that the divinity of Jesus was something claimed - by at least some people - who were alive when Jesus was.
ReplyDeleteOn the Gettysburg issue, I've always felt bad for Longstreet: he knew (as did most of the soldiers) that the charge on that last day at Gettysburg was a long shot and likely to fail. (Pickett, always eager for glory, was probably the most enthusiastic person at the start of the charge.) Longstreet tried to gently convince Lee of what a mistake it would be - but Lee's blood was up and it was really a matter of "He [the enemy] is there and we will strike him." And it resulted in "the mistake of all mistakes" (as Shelby Foote described it)...and yet, in the decades following the war, who got the blame? Not Lee, not the marble man. Longstreet was villainized after the war because he had the audacity to say that Lee made a mistake.
If soldiers who participated in a war can argue vehemently about who was to blame in a tactical mistake of an important battle, it is not too surprising that when the issue of a person's divinity arises in a country where anything that challenges a strongly held monotheism is "blasphemy", it will be a contentious issue, with both sides digging in their heals; and just as the Bosnians and Serbs are still antagonistic about events dating to 1389, so are those opposing opinions about the divinity of Jesus still recalcitrantly held...even after the passage of nearly two millennia.
David Graham
A hot topic indeed, very thoughtfully discussed in both the original post and the above comment. Unlike the issue of why it is unfair that James Longstreet was vilified after the Civil War for whatever mistakes were made (and there were plenty to go around), the issue of Christ's divinity and how we resolve it has incredibly serious implications for all of us. I once had the priviledge of listening to a Hebrew scholar discuss the issue in a most intersting context, and he made the following case: Jesus' divinity was not only a concept He addressed more or less, but in fact, His claims of divinity were very explicit! His speech, the manner in which he described his relationship to the Father, etc. would have been interpreted by the Jews as open claims of divinity. Even His reference to the Father as "Abba," which was the intimate and familiar way a child would address his/her father, would have been considered highly offensive and grossly presumptuous, even delusional actually. His suggestion that "I and the Father are one" was not figurative or metaphorical, but a statement about the nature of His realtionship to the Father. Those very claims, and others He made, were interpreted by the Pharisees in that light, hence their accusations of blasphemy. If Jesus was not fully God and fully man, His death was meaningless, the sad loss of a benevolent man whose aim it was to preach love and peace. The Apostles' preaching as described in Acts, the writings of Paul, and most of the other New Testament writers make clear what they felt was necessary for man's reconciliation with God. Not adopting a philosphy of how people should treat others, but accepting the death of God's own Son as sacrificial, removing the eternal consequences of their own sins. For the Jews, this need for a sacrificial lamb had been part of their heritage since the institution of the blood sacrifice for atonement (though many hoped for a different kind of Savior). If Jesus' teachings do not carry divine authority, they are simply one option among many about how to go through life honorably, live decently, etc. We humans are then left to "shop" for whatever seems the most comfortable fit, the one we agree with the most (so we "create" a god whose views we approve of - talk about hubris). The Apostles were not out sharing what they considered "a truth," but "THE Truth." They were so confident in this Truth, that many died willingly to defend it (though a willingness to die for what one believes does not in and of itself lend veracity to a truth claim). An acceptance of Jesus' claims of divinity does not, in my opinion, require one to be a Biblical literalist (I would want to know exactly what you define as a "literalist"), nor does it give license for the mistreatment of those of other faiths. It DOES mean defending the claim of the Christian faith as THE Truth and the ONLY Truth however, something many consider arrogant and derogatory. Even a simple review of the tenets of many other religions makes it clear they can't all be true because their claims are mutually exclusive. Either God exists or does not. Either Jesus is divine or not. From my perspective, there are clear choices before each of us, but the answers aren't simple, and more difficult yet, is living what one believes. Just some thoughts.
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