Jesus: Making Him Useless
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- čas přidán 10. 05. 2024
- How do people create a useless Jesus? Is there anything problematic with Jesus in the hit show, THE CHOSEN? What is wrong with recent popular images of Jesus shared prolifically on social media?
#jesus #bible #biblestudy #christianity
Well said. It wasn’t until I was roughly 30 years old did I really learn that Christianity and “being a good Christian” was more than and often times something completely contrary to being what society deems “a good person” or being almost “universally approved of by the general public.” Nowadays it’s often going against what’s perceived as morally good or popular by society or in some cases even the Church itself.
Thank you.
You're welcome! And thank you for your words and continually taking part in these presentations, Jem!!
Also, may I please say here, on the topic of the genocide being done to the Palestinian people, as well as the social dehumanization required to enact cruelty and atrocities against many different groups of people today is the same as it has been key to the perpetuation of horrors in the past: This is why "Never again" means never again for anyone. Not for anyone.
Amen! Never again means never again for anyone, any people! And there are MANY heroic descendants of the Holocaust and other courageous Jewish souls who stand in solidarity with Palestinians and all others who are oppressed and threatened by institutionalized genocidal hatred.
"King of the Jews" nailed atop the cross is the charge for which he was executed that is to say sedition.
"King of the Judaeans." The more popular and spurious familiar English rendering is anachronism. Sorry, Amy-Jill Levine!
Yes, that's sedition.
@@BibleAlivePresentations thank you so much. And some think Jesus was not political.
You seem very confident that the historical Jesus taught a theocratic message, in the sociopolitical sense. That's a very simplistic point of view. We cannot know FOR CERTAIN what the historical Jesus taught. All we have are some 3rd hand traditions of what he was understood by his followers to teach.
Nonetheless, is it likely that Jesus taught a message of an imminent, literal and physical, incursion of the kingdom of God that would be a threat to Roman rule?
I have one question for you. Why did NONE of the followers of Jesus suffer crucifixion or other punishment? If the Jesus Movement represented such a threat to imperial power, like radical leftwing protesters apparently do today, why only arrest Jesus? Wouldnt that be STUPID? Especially since some of Christ's close disciples were former Zealots?
Furthermore, we have an early (Markan) statement of Jesus telling his disciples to "render to Caesar what belongs to him". Oh but we can just ignore that as not historical.
on the contrary, we can assert with reasonable confidence that "we know (albeit in a mutable, corrigible way)"
Among the limited historical certainties that can be reasonably maintained about the Galilean peasant artisan/day-laborer turned folk-healer Jesus of Nazareth was that he proclaimed Israelite Theocracy. All critics agree that if Jesus did anything, he proclaimed the kingdom of sky-vault, a politically correct Israelite way of saving "kingdom of God" (See THE SOCIAL GOSPEL OF JESUS by Bruce Malina). This expression fell under the category of politics, specifically political religion.
In more abstract language, the kingdom of sky-vault (anachronistically rendered “kingdom of heaven”) was a form of theocracy, specifically Israelite theocracy. The metanoia/repentance required for participation in the forthcoming kingdom consisted in Israelites getting their lives in order for living in the new political order.
How can we know this for certain? By applying the prevailing scholarly criteria of authenticity (including the criteria of discontinuity, embarrassment, incongruity, multiple attestation, explanation and coherence), then, to Jesus' proclamation of a forthcoming kingdom of God (or of the sky-vaults; Matthew 4:17; Mark 1:15; Luke 4:42).
Breaking down those scholarly criteria at evaluating how we can know that the historical Jesus was very much involved in politics and all about Israelite theocracy, itself political-
Criterion of Embarrassment (no such theocracy emerged, so why would Gospel-writers invent this?) Criterion of Incongruity (behavior urged in “Matthew” and “Luke” is for third-generational fictive-kin Jesus-groups, not theocracy)
Criterion of Multiple Attestation (Israelite Theocracy is mentioned in all Synoptics, notably lacking in Paul)
Criterion of Coherence (Jesus was crucified for causing political unrest).
We can also be reasonably certain that the historical Jesus formed a political faction. All sources agree that, after Jesus' career was over, a group or coalition existed that previously had been closely connected to Jesus. If such a group did exist, it must have been formed within the framework of Jesus’ concern. And if Jesus’ concern was with theocracy, then this group was related to theocracy, a set of persons who witnessed to Jesus’ program. Within a political institution, a group formed to support someone's program is called a faction. Hence, we can be certain that Jesus formed a faction. Factions by definition are coalitions, that is, groups formed by a central person for a specific purpose and a specific time.
How can we know this for certain? By applying the prevailing scholarly criteria:
Criterion of Embarrassment ((the proclamation proved vacuous)
Criterion of Incongruity (in the Synoptics, these recruits act like a faction of a political religion rather than fictive kin-group founders as the later Church made them into being)
Criterion of Multiple Attestation (all Synoptics say Jesus recruited a group of persons to assist him in proclaiming the forthcoming theocracy-Matthew 4:18-22; Mark 1:16-20; Luke 5:1-11-and all Synoptics mention this recruitment and an initial attempt at proclamation)
Criterion of Coherence (all Synoptics report that group members accompany Jesus on his final trip to Jerusalem; they flee).
Although hagiographies are polished and highly legendary, we do have traditions that people who followed Jesus were crucified. I mean people in his immediate circle. And whether crucified or not, Jesus’s brother was killed. Peter was killed, likely put to death.
@@BibleAlivePresentations yes but the deaths of Peter and others were thought to take place decades after. That doesn't count.
@@BibleAlivePresentationsquestion though... Why was He brought in front of pontius pilate and they could not find any charges before him as well as being brought to the high priest and found no charges before him other than their 'blasphemy' accusations? (just confused)