What Did Jesus Intend?

[Hope]

This is all naturalistic science, where if needed you could drill down from the summary of the results to the details of the methods used to obtain and analyse data.

No even remotely comparable to science, since you don't have a method or data: just opinions/superstitions dressed up as theology. It seems you have set the bar so low here that you'll need to be careful not to trip over it.

The problem is that often non-scientists need to be able to compare things being claimed by scientists.  In many such cases, they will read the documentation available in journals such as Nature, New Scientist, and other similar titles.  They don't have the knowledge or even inclination to 'drill down' but can still see where a claim is viable or not - even if they don't make a final decision.  This is no different to my example about religious documentation.  I realise that you feel that you have got to put as many stumbling blocks in the way of the spiritual argument as you can, but such a flimsy one as the argument you have put up here is unlikely to trip anyone up - apart from yourself, perhaps.

[Gordon]

The problem is that often non-scientists need to be able to compare things being claimed by scientists.  In many such cases, they will read the documentation available in journals such as Nature, New Scientist, and other similar titles.  They don't have the knowledge or even inclination to 'drill down' but can still see where a claim is viable or not - even if they don't make a final decision.

Even so, they have the opportunity to learn more about the details should they wish to do so and can be certain that within the disciplines of professional science the methods are clear and tested, and even then professional scientists recognise that their conclusions are provisional and are subject to review.

This is no different to my example about religious documentation.  I realise that you feel that you have got to put as many stumbling blocks in the way of the spiritual argument as you can, but such a flimsy one as the argument you have put up here is unlikely to trip anyone up - apart from yourself, perhaps.

Nonsense: but of course you've yet to explain how you know (e.g. have knowledge) that the contents of religious documentation, which are primarily anecdotal, don't include mistakes and/or lies, and also explain the method you use to confirm that claimed miracles really did occur.
 

[jeremyp]

The problem is that often non-scientists need to be able to compare things being claimed by scientists.  In many such cases, they will read the documentation available in journals such as Nature, New Scientist, and other similar titles.  They don't have the knowledge or even inclination to 'drill down' but can still see where a claim is viable or not - even if they don't make a final decision.  This is no different to my example about religious documentation.  I realise that you feel that you have got to put as many stumbling blocks in the way of the spiritual argument as you can, but such a flimsy one as the argument you have put up here is unlikely to trip anyone up - apart from yourself, perhaps.

In the case of science, there is something to drill down into and if you care to read some scientific papers they tell you exactly how to perform the experiments to verify the results for yourself.

Your  alleged spiritual method doesn't exist so there is nothing to drill down into.

[Spud]

Insert a bust of Putin in your rectum of course. Haven't you been reading Ad O as abridged by NS?

I think I get it now. I thought someone was pist at first.

[Spud]

Matthew 10 epitomises this evangelist's confusion. Early in the chapter he has Jesus saying "Go nowhere among the Gentiles". Later on, he seems to recollect something different, because he talks of "testimony to the Gentiles". Later still, he goes back to restate Jesus' purely Judaic mission, emphasising how short the time left is:
 " When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel, before the Son of man comes."

This confusion permeates Matthew's gospel: on the one hand, he seems to be writing for a predominantly Jewish audience, so Jesus' apparent parochialism is stressed. On the other hand, there is rather a lot of extra stuff about his mission to the world (ending with the notorious final verse).
I don't see how these two views of Jesus can be really reconciled, apart from the idea that he was open to certain gentiles when they showed enough interest and faith in Judaism. But for all I know, those encounters may be as fabricated as the ending of this gospel obviously is. (The whole lot could be fabricated, if you hold to the Jesus' mythicist view: I don't)

Rosenstock-Huessy mentions, in the link I gave, that having begun his gospel in Israel, where he refers to Israel as "his (Jesus') people" (chapter 1), Matthew ends (chapter 28) with "to this day, the Jews circulate the rumor that the disciples stole his body". So by the time Matthew has finished his gospel, he no longer refers to Israel as Christ's people, but just, the Jews. This shows a shift in his thinking which has taken place as he has been writing.

Jesus says in Matthew's account of the Olivet discourse that the disciples will be excommunicated from the synagogue, then the gospel will be preached to the whole world. This shows that he understood the gospel to be preached in the synagogues before being taken to the rest of the world.

The end will then come, he says in the above verses. He seems to be lumping together the judgment on the cities of Israel (when Jesus comes) and the end of the world. This seems confusing, but to be fair, he doesn't know how long the mission to the gentiles will last, and that it will be continued long after the judgment on the Jewish nation.

[Jack Knave]

Rosenstock-Huessy mentions, in the link I gave, that having begun his gospel in Israel, where he refers to Israel as "his (Jesus') people" (chapter 1), Matthew ends (chapter 28) with "to this day, the Jews circulate the rumor that the disciples stole his body". So by the time Matthew has finished his gospel, he no longer refers to Israel as Christ's people, but just, the Jews. This shows a shift in his thinking which has taken place as he has been writing.

Jesus says in Matthew's account of the Olivet discourse that the disciples will be excommunicated from the synagogue, then the gospel will be preached to the whole world. This shows that he understood the gospel to be preached in the synagogues before being taken to the rest of the world.

The end will then come, he says in the above verses. He seems to be lumping together the judgment on the cities of Israel (when Jesus comes) and the end of the world. This seems confusing, but to be fair, he doesn't know how long the mission to the gentiles will last, and that it will be continued long after the judgment on the Jewish nation.

But Matthew was written decades after JC's death and it would seem reasonable that 'Matthew' would have known how the Jews were responding to the Christians by then. What would account for this is that the book was written bit by bit and gradually added to over the decades up to the time when Matthew was finished - hence the shift in the perspective of how things were perceived.

[Hope]

This shows a shift in his thinking which has taken place as he has been writing.

Does it have to show a shift in the author's thinking?  Of course not; it could quite legitimately reflect a change in attitudes and approach to Jesus' teaching by the Jews over the course of his 3-year ministry.  Remember that there is a similar shift in narrative in the other 2 synoptic gospels.

Jesus says in Matthew's account of the Olivet discourse that the disciples will be excommunicated from the synagogue, then the gospel will be preached to the whole world. This shows that he understood the gospel to be preached in the synagogues before being taken to the rest of the world.

The end will then come, he says in the above verses. He seems to be lumping together the judgment on the cities of Israel (when Jesus comes) and the end of the world. This seems confusing, but to be fair, he doesn't know how long the mission to the gentiles will last, and that it will be continued long after the judgment on the Jewish nation.

Now those thoughts I do agree with.

[Hope]

What would account for this is that the book was written bit by bit and gradually added to over the decade up to the time when Matthew was finished - hence the shift in the perspective of how things were perceived.

Rubbish, JK.  If the author was trying to show how Jesus' ministry had changed over 3 years, he would naturally deal with that change as it happens.  It doesn't require the material to have been written bit-by-bit.

[Hope]

In the case of science, there is something to drill down into and if you care to read some scientific papers they tell you exactly how to perform the experiments to verify the results for yourself.

Your  alleged spiritual method doesn't exist so there is nothing to drill down into.

And there is 'something to drill down into' in the Gospel documentation.

[Nearly Sane]

Rubbish, JK.  If the author was trying to show how Jesus' ministry had changed over 3 years, he would naturally deal with that change as it happens.  It doesn't require the material to have been written bit-by-bit.

If JC was , while human, an eternal omniscient being what would change about his/its teaching? Indeed what could change?

[Jack Knave]

Rubbish, JK.  If the author was trying to show how Jesus' ministry had changed over 3 years, he would naturally deal with that change as it happens.  It doesn't require the material to have been written bit-by-bit.

Perhaps you should say authors. What proof do you have that one person wrote this or that it came from one person's eye witness account? It is more likely, as they didn't have Word in those days, that all these accounts were collected together later well after they were made.

[Hope]

Perhaps you should say authors. What proof do you have that one person wrote this or that it came from one person's eye witness account? It is more likely, as they didn't have Word in those days, that all these accounts were collected together later well after they were made.

There are literary and linguistic ways of seeing whether a document has been written by one or more authors.  As far as I'm aware, there is no scholarly suggestion that the book was written by more than one author.

[Spud]

Does it have to show a shift in the author's thinking?  Of course not; it could quite legitimately reflect a change in attitudes and approach to Jesus' teaching by the Jews over the course of his 3-year ministry.  Remember that there is a similar shift in narrative in the other 2 synoptic gospels.

Rosenstock-Huessy seems to think it shows a shift in the author's thinking.
Here's the link again: http://tinyurl.com/ppwtpk9
He says, on page 23 of the book, that Matthew "writes from speaking as a Jew to speaking as a non-Jew" and that "by chapter 28... the Jews are no longer divided into believers [in Christ] and unbelievers in Christ. The Jews as Jews are outside Matthew's family. The fence between them and Matthew is infinitely higher in chapter 28 than in chapter 1. The outpouring of his experiences, his memories, his notes, changed the writer's own mind. Everybody should become a different person by writing a book." (My brackets and emphasis added).

Then he says, "The wisdom of our tradition consists in the fact that in the first gospel a man writes himself out of Israel by writing up Jesus."

"... An evangelist is a man who, by speaking of Jesus, changes his own mind; by being in process, he leads others into the same process. The gospel of Matthew instituted the process of seeing the world and Israel in a new light because it was this very process itself."

"... Standing upright and pleading in danger of his own life, and then abandoning his own Jewish allegiance, Matthew wrote his gospel. He reversed the meaning of the Bible by experiencing that it was no longer the last word. The last sentence of the gospel... expresses this fact very simply."

[Spud]

Now those thoughts I do agree with.

I made a mistake there; it was John who said the disciples would be thrown out of the synagogues, not Matthew.

[jeremyp]

And there is 'something to drill down into' in the Gospel documentation.

Yes, but if you drill down into the gospels (in an intellectually honest way), you find that they are anonymous with unknown and unverifiable sources and are not independent. In other words, drilling down shows that they are not reliable accounts of the life and death and alleged resurrection of Jesus.

[jeremyp]

I made a mistake there; it was John who said the disciples would be thrown out of the synagogues, not Matthew.

Yes, indeed and that passage is used to date John to after 90CE since that is when Christians were thrown out of the synagogues.

[ad_orientem]

Yes, indeed and that passage is used to date John to after 90CE since that is when Christians were thrown out of the synagogues.

Except if you believe in prophesy, which is why you can't separate study of the scriptures from the faith, for the unbeliever will always conclude what you have just concluded.

[Nearly Sane]

Except if you believe in prophesy, which is why you can't separate study of the scriptures from the faith, for the unbeliever will always conclude what you have just concluded.

you could just say 'I believe because I believe, and any form of questioning,logic, is worthless because I believe'

[ad_orientem]

you could just say 'I believe because I believe, and any form of questioning,logic, is worthless because I believe'

Not at all. It's just your conclusion is a non sequitur.

[Nearly Sane]

Not at all. It's just your conclusion is a non sequitur.

In what way? You said you have to have faith to even discuss it? If you have faith - not based on logic - how would you question it, use logic?

[ad_orientem]

In what way? You said you have to have faith to even discuss it? If you have faith - not based on logic - how would you question it, use logic?

Your non sequitur: The Apostle John in his gospel writes about Christians being thrown out of the Temple therefore it must have been written after the Christians were thrown out of the Temple. That is a non sequitur. But yes, the scriptures cannot be properly understood or studied by an unbeliever for it is the Holy Spirit which leads one into all truth, as our Lord himself promised in the same gospel.

[Shaker]

Begging the question, they call that particular fallacy.

[Nearly Sane]

Your non sequitur: The Apostle John in his gospel writes about Christians being thrown out of the Temple therefore it must have been written after the Christians were thrown out of the Temple. That is a non sequitur. But yes, the scriptures cannot be properly understood or studied by an unbeliever for it is the Holy Spirit which leads one into all truth, as our Lord himself promised in the same gospel.

I think you better think it out again

[Dicky Underpants]

Your non sequitur: The Apostle John in his gospel writes about Christians being thrown out of the Temple therefore it must have been written after the Christians were thrown out of the Temple. That is a non sequitur. But yes, the scriptures cannot be properly understood or studied by an unbeliever for it is the Holy Spirit which leads one into all truth, as our Lord himself promised in the same gospel.

And that is simply circular, for that supposed 'Holy Spirit' leads Sassy to think that the doctrine of the Trinity is erroneous, and BashfulAnthony to think he should reject the Old Testament as not being from the supreme God.

[ad_orientem]

And that is simply circular, for that supposed 'Holy Spirit' leads Sassy to think that the doctrine of the Trinity is erroneous, and BashfulAnthony to think he should reject the Old Testament as not being from the supreme God.

They're both heretics.