Jesus [36] The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (22)

[* irenic *]

Jesus [36] The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (22)

Continuing our summary/review of Tom Wright and Marcus Borg's discussion...
For other articles in this series visit
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/catalog/section/jc1.htm.

These brief excerpts are meant to provoke thought/reflection...

More from Tom Wright:

'There is no pre-Christian Jewish tradition suggesting that the messiah
would be born of a virgin. No one used Isaiah 7:14 this way before Matthew
did. Even assuming Matthew or Luke regularly invented material to fit Jesus
into earlier templates, why would they have invented something like this?
The only conceivable parallels are pagan ones, and these fiercely Jewish
stories have certainly not been modeled on them. Luke at least must have
known that telling this story ran the risk of making Jesus out to be a pagan
demigod. Why for the sake of an exalted metaphor would they take this risk -
unless they at least believed them to be literaly true?' (p. 176).

[Note from Rowland: To be fair to Tom and Marcus I'm presenting their
summary-views before I offer some of my own... You'll have to *think* first,
and then wait for my appraisal].

-- --

Shalom! Rowland Croucher

I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I
would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity
(Oliver Wendell Holmes)

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/ - 17,600 articles; 4000 jokes/funnies

[Matthew Johnson]

In article <sMRBg.10518$***@trnddc06>, * irenic * says...
[snip]

Post by * irenic *
[Note from Rowland: To be fair to Tom and Marcus I'm presenting their
summary-views before I offer some of my own... You'll have to *think* first,
and then wait for my appraisal].

Well, some of us prefer not to wait;) But since you are asking what we think, I
will tell you what I think of both these "summary-views": neither of them is
worth a fraction of the time you spend on them. Watching this opposition of
Wright and Borg is like watching Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum battle over their
broken toy-rattle, with the sole difference that it is dangerous to a person's
salvation to believe too much of what either of Borg or Wright say.

Far less dangerous, and far more worth the time, is the view of Christ and the
Holy Spirit preserved in the classic by St. Seraphim of Sarov:

http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/sermon_st_seraphim.htm

Although even this brilliant work can be seriously misunderstood. But it is SO
worth the risk, since the insight into the very goal of the Christian life is
_so_ overwhelming.

[Burkladies]

Christ has redeveloped in many prophets in ancient; Jewish faith and
other now comtemporary faiths. So Jesus would represent a pagan
demigod to some folks. The eternal Christ can take any form and does.
Some who believe in rerincarnation, they think they find the prophet
Christ in Osiris for example;

Osiris was not only the merciful judge of the dead in the afterlife,
but also the underworld agency that granted all life, including
sprouting vegetation and the fertile flooding of the Nile River.
Beginning at about 2000 B.C. all men, not just dead pharaohs, were
believed to be associated with
Osiris at death.
Only those initiated into the Osirian cult would know its doctrines and
ceremonials, for these were, according to the Book of the Dead, "an
exceedingly great mystery...in the handwriting of the god himself....
And these things shall be done secretly" (in the rubric accompanying
Ch. CXXXVIIa).

Blessed be, Lady

Post by * irenic *
Jesus [36] The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (22)
Continuing our summary/review of Tom Wright and Marcus Borg's discussion...
For other articles in this series visit
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/catalog/section/jc1.htm.
These brief excerpts are meant to provoke thought/reflection...
'There is no pre-Christian Jewish tradition suggesting that the messiah
would be born of a virgin. No one used Isaiah 7:14 this way before Matthew
did. Even assuming Matthew or Luke regularly invented material to fit Jesus
into earlier templates, why would they have invented something like this?
The only conceivable parallels are pagan ones, and these fiercely Jewish
stories have certainly not been modeled on them. Luke at least must have
known that telling this story ran the risk of making Jesus out to be a pagan
demigod. Why for the sake of an exalted metaphor would they take this risk -
unless they at least believed them to be literaly true?' (p. 176).