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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (60158)	10/25/1999 11:47:00 AM
From: nihil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I think it is interesting that only Luke is this elaborate. Some critics argue that Luke was more "literary" than Mark and Matthew and works out some literary problems as here. John is more informative (IMO the main author of John was there in person and he mentions that the assailant was Peter which the other gospels (not written, I believe, by eyewitnesses but based on other sources such as Simon Peter who would hardly claim to be the swordsman) don't). Luke (who wasn't there, I believe, but is relying on Peter's unwritten account). Luke embroidered Mark and Matthew (IMO), and may have had help from Peter to make the two sword incident show that Jesus "plotted" the sword cut incident (to fulfill the scriptures that Jesus "should be taken as a criminal." Jesus may have wanted to be sure that at least one was armed with a sword so his gang could violently resist the high-priest's mob (but not win -- thus two swords "were enough"). Thus it was not by mere chance that Peter struck off Malchus's ear, but the result of Jesus's foresight or planningc (which will depend on one's view of Jesus's omnniscience). (Jesus could not be omniscient or he would not have wasted time asking God to let the cup pass from him three times). Critics seems to think that the gospels were all written 30 to 70 years after the event and while they agree in many incidents it's hard for a me, a skeptic of Jesus's messiahhood, to pay much attention to attempt to show how Jesus fulfilled the biblical predictions of the messiah. Viewing the whole literary product at a glance, it looks as if the authors went to extremes to fit (or distorted) the facts they recalled from their informants (or remembered in the instance of John) in the framework of the messianic prophecies. As history, where the writers had years to make the jigsaw puzzle fit it boils down to whether Jesus, a mere human, consciously attempted to fulfill scripture, acting the messianic part, or whether he just went through his Divine life under the control of God the Father. I am confident that the writers wrote as if Jesus were fulfilling prophecy. I don't know if Jesus was consciously acting out prophecy in detail. If the credible (non-miraculous) incidents of the gospels are in fact true I think that Jesus believed not only that he was Messiah but also one person of the triune God. I see no reason to accept his own assessment of his divine personality. Consequently I believe that he was mentally ill. Depressed. Paranoid. Suicidal. Withal, an extraordinary personality, who did his part to change the world. He made himself as much a god as the Divine Julius and the Divine Alexander ever did. In working out the mysteries of the passion it is IMO impossible to solve the problem from the bible. Everything is dominated by one's belief or doubt. Only Christians can believe Jesus was god. Many of these Christians lived and died pious Jews (e.g. James the Just). I think Jesus died a pious Jew.