How strong is your belief in Jesus from an historic point of view?

Pagels argues that early authority figures within the church, particularly Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons, concluded that the writer of the Gospel of Thomas erred in suggesting that Jesus taught "that we have direct access to God through the divine image within us," Pagels writes. In contrast, the majestic Gospel according to John--which Pagels believes was probably written in response to Thomas, with the two texts "in dialogue" but also often in conflict--took a far different view of Jesus and his ministry and proved more useful in uniting the growing Christian movement.

If Thomas believed humans should try to emulate Jesus as a way of discovering inner divinity, John's Gospel "succeeded ever after in persuading the majority of Christians," Pagels writes, that "only by believing in Jesus can we find divine truth."

"The history of Christianity is not a triumphal march of ideas but a series of intense arguments and conversations," Pagels said. "I love that side of it."
 
That necessity is part of orthodox doctrine. I think Thomas Christians would argue that the crucifixion was merely an example of Jesus living his teaching, rather than the ultimate "holy lamb, your sins are magically clean, yada, yada, yada".
 
How strong is your belief in Jesus from an historic point of view?
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I think Jesus is based on a real person. I think upon his death, people he knew were probably taken by surprise at the amount of people who soon became interested... and greedily, they borrowed, stole and invented a lot of stories to further that interest. Hence why most of the writings are decades after his death and absolutely nothing written during the life of this so-called son of god.

I don't believe there were really any great supernatural aspects about Jesus during his lifetime, they came about after his death. If christians today could go back and see the real Jesus (if he ever existed at all), they would be sorely disappointed.

People who think the story of Jesus is anything like being accurate, are really delusional or stupid... or both.
 
It's a bit like searching out the historical King Arthur, or the historical Homer. Very few facts, and lots of rumour, and damn near impossible to determine which is which.
 
Pete: It's a bit like searching out the historical King Arthur, or the historical Homer. Very few facts, and lots of rumour, and damn near impossible to determine which is which.
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M*W: Interesting point. Homer allegedly wrote the Iliad, but was it really Homer? Or was it somebody else using the pseudonym Homer?

I used to believe there was a King Arthur, but now I know he is just a metaphor for the Great Bear Constellation (Ursa Major). The "round table" of course is the 12 signs of the zodiac. The knights of the round table are the different signs/positions of the zodiac. Avalon=heaven. The holy grail, well, it's a cup, so that must be a metaphor for Aquarias.

It's like this: Someday we will all be mythological characters, too. Some good, some evil. I just hope I'll be remembered as one of the good ones. Well, maybe, not on sciforums, but in real life. I guess this is only a reality show we're in. "All the world's a stage...". ~ Shakespeare (the original reality show creator). A Simon Cowell of his day, I suppose!
 
Medicine Woman said:
I used to believe there was a King Arthur, but now I know he is just a metaphor for the Great Bear Constellation (Ursa Major). The "round table" of course is the 12 signs of the zodiac. The knights of the round table are the different signs/positions of the zodiac. Avalon=heaven. The holy grail, well, it's a cup, so that must be a metaphor for Aquarias.
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I know it's off topic but...

I prefer the idea that King Arthur was based on the myths / legends that would have circulated at the time in every little village - where the strongest warriors would have earned the nickname of "Arturus" - meaning Bear in Latin - for the feats that they did.
Each village would have its own stories of what its "bear" would do, and as the stories spread, they slowly amalgamated into one person - "Artur" / "Arthur".
 
spidergoat said:
That necessity is part of orthodox doctrine. I think Thomas Christians would argue that the crucifixion was merely an example of Jesus living his teaching, rather than the ultimate "holy lamb, your sins are magically clean, yada, yada, yada".
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The Council of Nicea effectively threw out the Gospel of Thomas account.
With the concept of "hidden divinity" they knew this would self empower people too much. It's much easier to control the masses with the concept of a jealous, vengefull ,and harsh god who is apart from his creation.
 
Greetings,

IceAgeCivilizations said:
The early Christians were compiling the Gospels and other NT books through the decades after 50 A.D., and no one contested their authorship, nor the veracity of them, except a few wack jobs cited by Iason.
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Now that is truly hilarious.

First he says :
"no-one contested them",

then he says
"except those who DID"

What a laugh.
As if calling them "wack jobs" means their testimony is false.

We can see how good Ice is at researching and fact checking by his inability to get a simple name right.


Iasion
 
IceAgeCivilizations said:
He is risen!

I think many of the Holocaust victims are now with the Lord, saved by their belief in Jesus Christ, the Jewish and Gentile Messiah.
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He came down, allegedly died and then rose up again.

He never really died, did he?
 
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