Seriously, who exactly was the biblical Jesus?

[headheart]

No doubt he was a man. Obviously if one goes for Just a man, then one is going to have to deal with his life and also his claims as per the NT and well it's not something that one can hold to without making serious alterations to the text, or interpreting terms like Son of Man and Son of God to mean things that they don't.

Not sure what "Just a man" means. Clearly, in the Gospel account, he was a special sort of man, not an ordinary man, not "just a man". Exactly how he is special, well that's the question.

I was thinking of the other options in my opening post and wondering if someone might tick the box that says 'a man' and nothing else.
Though I think that many opt for that view that the biblical Jesus was a man because they reject the idea of miracles and certainly too the resurrection and if one has a very dim view of the Christian sacred texts to begin with due to an extreme type of textual criticism bordering on complete rejection of the major sections of the Christian sacred texts relative to the miraculous accounts and certainly the resurrection, depending on one's level of skepticism one is left with either a wise teacher of if one finds fault with that surely mere man and nothing more than that?

Certainly. My own reading of the gospels and by that I mean as a skeptic and then a stronger believer as I began to realize along with the crowds who followed him around that no one and certainly none of the teachers that the people had heard and I wonder how much that extends to including the Romans and nearby Greeks.
I am not a literary wizard but even with my most basic English reading those accounts again and again until one is reading without all the extraneous non-sense that gets in the way when reading such a scandalized book as the Bible, I could not help being confronted by "a man" YES, but not just a man! As you rightly state Exactly how he is special, well that's the question.

Peace,
headheart

[headheart]

[edit] I got confused with Jesus as a product of evolution, but it's actually Jesus as a product of religious evolution I think there's certainly that going on with religions where they've altered their deities over time, but I think that teaching about who Jesus was has been pretty constant though there is a book out that claims that the early Christians didn't have a high a view of Jesus and the bit about him being G-d has evolved. Mmm. Can someone actually be the "product" of evolution, spiritual or other???

If one holds to a progressive view of religious history - that, by fits and starts, humanity as a whole is moving closer to God instead of away from God - then Jesus could be an important stage in humanity's religious evolution, a force pushing it further onwards. And Jesus doesn't exist in a vacuum; he takes existing religious ideas, builds on them, improves them, reimagines them, etc. He was a reformer; it's not clear that he actually intended to start a completely new religion, as opposed to a new phase in Judaism, even though that is to some extent what actually ended up happening.

For now I'm just going to bob my head and hope that someone else engages you in this regard for it's certainly a very interesting thought.

Peace,
headheart

ps. I've now caught up with the replies.
I made the poll secret because I guess we're living in times where these ideas are being tossed to and fro like a bunch of sailors on a boat in storm with a slumbering ....

[Ignostic]

In short a mix of Man & Myth.

Stritly speaking Im inclined to believe that the biblical Jesus was based on a man orignaly but interlaced with that is a composite of various figures & events both within an unorthdox sect of Jews and figures of other religions. The similarity to other faiths, Horus etc is just too similar.

I don't see Matthew & Luke as independent attestations rather as Retcon's of Mark. Of all the Gospels deemed canonical, Mark was the earliest & has the most textual variations pre 4th Century.

[headheart]

Was Jesus then one of the characters in 'A Man For All Seasons' ?

I gotta move,
Bye-bye.
headheart

[Tanakh Keeper]

This reminds me of other threads where we spend too much time arguing about the subject and not engaging it. I hope this is not a

Peace,
Eric

Well, when you ask for people's opinions, it's almost a given that discussion will become an argument.

I ended up checking three boxes: a failed messianic prophet, a myth, and a man.

I actually believe him to be a fictional character based on an amalgamation of various cults that existed at the time. That checks the box for 'myth', which I define as a fictional story. However, the story as told in the Christian bible, describes this character. Using the identifiers from the story, I can say that the fictional character named Jesus was definitely a man (check another box) and didn't meet the qualifications in Judaism to be considered a prophet (check another box). Though there really isn't a Jewish term of 'messianic prophet', I went with the closest alternative.

[Rushing Jaws]

AFAICS, Jesus was:

the first four;
& "A product of religious evolution"
& "A very wise philosopher";
& a lot more: as the Bible makes clear.

There is an unbridgeable difference between "being a prophet" & ""being no more than", "being only", a prophet". He is the Supreme Prophet, for He speaks for God with Divine authority, as they did. He is a myth in that HE is the *muthos*, the "utterance" of the Father, & in the sense noted by Lewis, Tolkien & Dorothy Sayers: who all see Him as the True Myth to Whom all created myths & stories & tales point: He is the True Dionysus, the Original Tammuz, the Horus of Whom the son of Isis is a pale imitation. As Newman pointed out long ago, Christian-like things in paganism are Christian realities in in non-Christian settings. He came first, not in time, but in God's intention; so that He is Model & Exemplar & Pattern of all creation, including the stories told in it. This means He is of universal relevance, and is the Standard of all things. Which is why the Church's message is to be preached to all mankind.

He was not "a" God - but He is God, Incarnate. And possibly an *avatar* as well. He is the God Who mediates God; Who is the at once the same as, yet other than, the Father.

ISTM that the failure of Jesus is immensely important for His Identity & Work. God saves through the failure, the disgrace, the accursedness, the uncleanness & unholiness, the degradation & rejection by God & Jews & Gentiles, which is the Death of Jesus. Something can be a colossal failure from man's POV - & be the perfect fulfilment of God's Will. The Crucifixion was a glorious success, & an excellent instance of how God's Will cannot be thwarted. Human resistance to, & rejection of, Jesus was "taken up" into God's Will and became a means of fulfilling it. The enmity of the devil and of men fulfilled God's will, despite the intentions of men and the devil, and without *any* violence to the wills of the devil or men; they did what they wished. One can be certain of this, in a way not applicable to most events in history, because we have canonical interpretations of the meaning of the Death of Jesus, in the NT & Sacred Tradition. The same does not apply to the theological meaning of (say) WW2, or the Spanish Armada, or the rise of Islam, or the failure of Hannibal to sack Rome. They are within the scope of Divine Providence, as all things in creation are: but they have no canonical interpretation, such as events in "Salvation history" have.

[headheart]

Poll Result: Seriously, who exactly was the biblical Jesus?

A man 12 + A Deity 7 + A very wise philosopher 5 + A Divine 4 + A Myth 4 + G-d according to the Hebrew Shema 3 + A product of religious evolution 3 + A failed Messianic prophet 2 + A failed apocalyptic prophet 2 + None of the above, here's what I think 2.

Stir!

= 42, therefore, Jack Nicholson.

Witches of Eastwick - Jack Nicolson.jpg