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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: If Jesus didn't exist, would it be necessary to invent Him?
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
In other words WHY Jesus?
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Love wins
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
Interesting question - most arguments seem to be around "What?" and "Who?".
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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The Midge
Shipmate
# 2398
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
In other words WHY Jesus?
Because of the human condition?
You could have Mohammed, Buddha or even David Koresh if you would like. I suppose they answer different 'whys?'
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Some days you are the fly.
On other days you are the windscreen.
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
In other words WHY Jesus?
That's a totally different question from "If Jesus didn't exist, would it be necessary to invent Him?".
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
To you. Not to me. If He didn't exist then we've done an incredible, literally un-credible, utterly unbelievable conspiracy of making Him up.
Either way, if He hadn't come, would we have got to open, liberal, affirming, equalizing, liberating, inclusive, theism or transcendent spiritism with the radical, pacifist, social gospel AND the best-case icing with the all-will-be-well cherry on top of eternal life? From Hellenized and orientalized Judaism? And Greco-Roman humanism?
In fact DID WE? Do we?
What difference did and does Jesus make?
I.e. why Jesus?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Acknowledged, thanks, itsarumdo and The Midge.
We're clearing the decks.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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The Midge
Shipmate
# 2398
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Posted
Ok, Jesus is quoted to say "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." (John 8). Enter contextuality of the gospel- or the message that Jesus brought. It has been read according to our needs or the needs of a particular people. So we are free to respond according to our situation and the gospel is flexible enough to remain true but be lived out according to our situation.
That is because Jesus' teaching goes beyond the material world. It isn't easy; being free from the laws of adultery because we love people so purely we don't see them as sex objects, being detached from the brutality of Roman occupation to the extent that we carry their kit a mile further than we are obliged to etc, etc.
I'm not sure you could make that stuff up. Anyone know an easier Messiah?
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Some days you are the fly.
On other days you are the windscreen.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I agree completely, but if He hadn't said it, lived it, would we have got it by now?
Not that we have.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
You could have Mohammed, Buddha or even David Koresh ...
..... and Princess Di.
< joining in the shortest post comp >
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I like the question in the title.
I would say that Jesus' existence is an historical fact, about which I don't actually think is much controversy. The invention part? We already invent things about Jesus. A relatively recent invention seems to be that from some reformed and protestant perspectives, we're supposed to have a 'personal relationship' with Jesus, in the sense of active agency or presence in our lives, and a sense of Jesus being with us.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
I rather think that the significance of Jesus in the scheme of things is that he is the definitive revelation of God. That significance is rather contingent on his having actually existed.
If it could be demonstrated tomorrow that Jesus didn't, actually, exist one would have to hold that the accounts in the four Gospels were moving testaments to the human spirit's capacity for hope and compassion and whatnot which might be no bad thing but which would hardly quite the same.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Aye. I'm happy with invoking Him every which way. Knowing that's my iconography. I watched a friend dying of bone cancer last Friday and afterwards I invoked His kindness. I had to. Because it is so. But it isn't experienced directly. We have to invent Him, make Him up all the time.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
I'm sorry about your friend, Martin.
I think you are right. If you sit in a dark room and hold your hand in front of your face you will see a hand, even though your optic nerves can't register anything. That's because your brain knows there is something there and fills in the gap on your behalf. If, as a wise man said, we see through a glass darkly we will always be trying to make coherent shapes out of the shadows until the point when we see Him face to face.
But the hope is that behind the shadow there is substance. Otherwise, to my mind, the whole endeavour founders.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
My initial reaction is that the question is different from that posed by Voltaire regarding the existence of God, so that while God would need to be invented the same cannot be said of Jesus.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I would say the opposite. If Jesus did not exist, there is no likelihood that the sort of religious figures that anyone might have imagined into being would have been anything like him.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
Enoch quote:
If Jesus did not exist, there is no likelihood that the sort of religious figures that anyone might have imagined into being would have been anything like him
Enoch, I'm in complete agreement with you. The point I'm trying to make is that Jesus is not the necessary product of philosophical or religious imagination a la Voltaire, but the incarnate revelation of a God who could not have been immaterially conceived, necessarily or otherwise.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
I'm inclined to agree with you, Kwesi. There has been unending speculation about God (and gods) down the years. But I'm not aware that anything like Jesus has ever been envisaged.
Though of course I am referring to the claims Jesus is recorded as making about himself. If your view, though, is more that Jesus was solely a wise and moral man, then of course we have had them.
The other thing worth mentioning is the series of claims about other possibly-related typologies (e.g. dying and rising gods). Even allowing for the early church's enthusiastic co-option of other ways of speaking about things, I'm not aware of any of these typologies that do not have major problems, mostly that they have so much about them that disagrees with the narrative about Jesus.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I have to agree with Enoch. Jesus is such an unexpectable kind of person. So is what he did. I have a hell of an imagination, but I can't imagine coming up with anything like him, or anyone else being able to do so. Even knowing him in reality for so long he still manages to surprise me most of the time. Which is cool but often scary.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Rejoice Callan. I do. My friend is already in His certain embrace and soon will feel it directly. And a superb metaphor, thank you. I've done exactly that 750 feet under ground with my eyes wide open in utter blackness. You never see anyone else's of course. But they're certainly there. Which extend the metaphor.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
If Jesus didn't exist, it would probably depend on what sort of relationship you had with your father. If you experienced your father as kind and loving, then there would be much less of a problem in seeing God and kind and loving and therefore not need a Christ figure as go-between. But if your image of 'father' is much more problematic, it would be very difficult to imagine a direct relationship with God.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
Chorister quote:
If Jesus didn't exist, it would probably depend on what sort of relationship you had with your father.
Wouldn't it be more about one's relationship with one's brother? (A problem, for course, for those without a brother).
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
No, I did mean father as I was thinking about our relationship with God as Father (with no Son to intercede).
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
We couldn't know Him as Father without the Son. Roses are red, violets are bluish, if it wasn't for Christmas we'd all be ...
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
...something other than what we are. You could say the same about Pythagoras or Hitler.
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
We couldn't know Him as Father without the Son. Roses are red, violets are bluish, if it wasn't for Christmas we'd all be ...
Perhaps we'd first need to ask Jews that question, then. And listen, and learn from their answer.
(Long time SoFers will recall that I have a problem with Jesus as a resurrected being, which is influencing the comments I'm giving here)
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
We have to invent Him, make Him up all the time.
I agree. I'm not Jesus's best friend, and I'm far from being the best friend of the Church that constantly reinvents Him, but a world without Him is to me unthinkable. And I don't mean just Jesus the eloquent teacher and turner of neat phrases, I mean Jesus the incarnate Son of God. For all the evil done in His name, I truly and firmly believe that the world would be a darker, bleaker and more terrifying place without Him, and without all the things we've turned Him into.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
pimple: I don't actually think we'd be Jewish. And there wouldn't be Islam per se. There'd be something of a fusion of both. We'd be more Eastern (Hindu-Buddhist-Confucian) and more secular, more republican from the word go. It's implicit in Roman civilization.
Chorister: Judaism has answers only in the light of Christ for me and has its own evolutionary impetus way below that. The chesed of Abraham isn't apparent without the risen Christ. I don't see what Judaism up to 2000 years ago has to offer beyond nonetheless sublime Bronze age yearning to the transcendent.
Adeodatus: I agree completely. Let's keep making Him up - interpreting, invoking Him - better by The Spirit.
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Love wins
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
I read somewhere that in the 60s there was a lot of interest in Jesus, whereas later (probably the 90s) the focus was more on God (the Father). I can't remember the context for this, but I suppose it's not hard to imagine that in the era of the hippies, of counter-cultural radicalism and youthful anti-capitalism a certain image of Jesus would be appealing.
It's harder to put one's finger on where popular spirituality would hook into Jesus these days. Russell Brand is currently being portrayed by the media as something of a Jesus-figure, but that seems a bit forced! Some artists are depicting Jesus as homeless victim, which may encourage wealthy people to think about the poor but it probably isn't a galvanising image for the poor themselves, nor for those who are looking for a pro-active spiritual or political role-model.
It also seems that many of today's committed atheists have moved beyond the 'good man' idea of Jesus, and are in a more antagonistic camp. These people are still in the minority, I'm sure, but the internet gives them more visibility and influence than they might have had before. More generally, I think our post-Christian society sees Jesus as one of many purveyors of the Golden Rule, more famous for being famous than for his life or his self-sacrifice.
Strangely, I also feel that many Christians have a problem with Jesus, particularly with his crucifixion. Christmas is quite clearly an easier sell than Easter. For some of us the resurrection is a miracle too far, for others the crucifixion itself seems too brutal, and to make too much of it is undignified (See reactions to 'The Passion of the Christ'). We can't even agree on what the cross was for. Meanwhile, some of the more fundamentalist groups have been accused of pursuing a Christianity that has more affinity with the OT than with the NT.
So I'm not sure that we'd 'invent' Jesus today. Or perhaps we'd invent him differently. We'd need a lot of different 'Jesuses' to satisfy our different uses for him.
Heaven help us all!
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I like that SvitlanaV2, we have been making Him up badly ever since He came.
It would be impossible to invent Jesus, i.e. a narrative of such power, either by conspiring to fabricate the one we have from the first century or, if we didn't have that, by coming up with a philosophical-mystical-poetic route. Which we have in parallel any way and it doesn't work.
Apart from giving us the golden rule, the discovery of enlightened self interest, unconditional love in all cultures (Romans 2:14).
For me, the only alternative narrative is materialism. We'd have got to that. Possibly earlier.
It would be necessary to invent Him but we aren't capable. And having Him, we re-cast Him badly.
Your last line applies!
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
The other thing worth mentioning is the series of claims about other possibly-related typologies (e.g. dying and rising gods).
I'd have said that the powerful being using their inexplicable power to come back after death is one of the things we do find necessary to invent. That the popularity of this motif in drama is not a Jesus-reference but draws on something within the human psyche that pre-dates the Incarnation.
Other good candidates for human invention driven by our needs are the idea that Jesus had an intimate relationship with Mary Magdalene. The idea that Peter was Jesus' right-hand man who succeeded to the leadership position when Jesus left. And the idea that Jesus came from the sky and returned to his home there. These are the sort of story elements we humans would put in if we were making up the story.
But on the other hand there seem to me things we wouldn't choose to put in. An invented Jesus would state the author's message more directly than talking in parables . Would teach us the magic words instead of asking us to show faith and repentance. Would curse our enemies from the Cross instead of forgiving. Would talk up the remote kingliness of God to empasise his own specialness, rather than telling us to pray to a loving father Daddy and calling Himself a Son of Man.
It can be hard, growing up in a Christian culture, to see what's so different about the Christian story from the sort of stories people invent. But maybe we can get some idea...
Best wishes,
Russ
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Heck, he wouldn't die on a cross--if he "had to" die (being invented), it would be in battle or some similar noble way. Not hanging there in helpless, shameful nakedness for all the world to see. Who invents something like that?
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
If you sit in a dark room and hold your hand in front of your face you will see a hand, even though your optic nerves can't register anything.
Er... you will? I never have... ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Anyway, my own take on this is that, as Aslan says, "No one knows what would have happened." I have no idea what the world would be like in that case.
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
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Patdys
Iron Wannabe
RooK-Annoyer
# 9397
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Posted
I am an evolutionary theist.
My Adam is the first human who evolved to a point to look beyond themselves and immediate environment and wonder about a God.
Jesus is the difference between wondering about a God and being able to develop a meaningful relationship with a God. The difference between wondering and knowing. The difference between knowledge and wisdom.
My understanding is that God and all of creation, from outside of time, hinged on Christ, and the possibility of relationship. But this gives the flip side that if there was no Christ, existing before the beginning of time and space, part of the Trinity, then not only we would not know of God, but we would not exist.
Not would we invent him, but would he invent us?
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Marathon run. Next Dream. Australian this time.
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
I'm with Patdys. John said it well: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh and lived among us . . ..
We didn't invent Jesus. Jesus always was and is. This is true for me even if there never was a historical figure named Jesus of Nazareth.
Our human conception of God is of a powerful figure - usually removed from us somehow - who judges us rather than experiences our joys, pains and our love with us. The Christ we expected was someone who would physically lead the children of God to throw off Rome and return the chosen people to whatever they had before.
The Christ who showed up in the flesh didn't meet any of those expectations. Instead, Jesus was raised if not poor, not exactly "comfortable" either.* Jesus didn't say "Adopt this complex set of beliefs and requirements if you want to be saved", but "follow me." Jesus did not throw out Rome, but died because he threatened the comfort of certain people who were complicit with the Roman occupation.
And then Jesus came back as the spiritual being Jesus always was.
This is a divine mystery, not a solid God like image that can be understood by set rules obedience to which brings solid physical rewards. The Trinity is not a puzzle to be understood, but a mystery beyond human comprehension to be absorbed without needing to understand it.
So, Martin my friend, you ask about inventing Jesus. I tell you we never invented the real Jesus. We may have invented more than one Jesus we can understand and access to whom we can control, but never the real thing.
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*Which says something about prosperity gospel, but I digress.
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Thank you for that rare and worthwhile contribution Tortuf.
I actually could go with that if it were possible: that even if there were no such person, the story is good enough.
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Love wins
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