Was Jesus a false prophet?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
iskander
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Re: Was Jesus a false prophet?

Post by iskander »

iskander wrote: Wed Dec 06, 2017 3:03 pm The idea of the prophet as a divinely-inspired teacher of moral law, could only make a prophet true or false if he teaches within the tradition. Theology rules on the truth or the falsehood of the teacher.
Jesus was an innovator
The theology of prophecy:

THE LAWS OF THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF THE TORAH
CHAPTER NINE
This chapter explains that a prophet may not make any changes whatsoever in the Torah and the commandments contained therein.

1) ...From here we see that a prophet may not make any changes [at all] in the Torah. Therefore, if a man, whether a gentile or a Jew, arises and performs signs and wonders, and says that God sent him to add to, or take away from, a mitzvah, or to institute a new mitzvah which we did not hear from Moses, or says that the commandments with which we have been commanded are not for eternity but are meant only for a temporary period, then he is a false prophet, for he has come to undermine the prophecy of Moses. His punishment is death by strangulation, which is the punishment for deliberately speaking in the name of God without having been commanded to do so. God told Moses that all the commandments are for eternity, and no man can accuse God of being deceitful
hakeem
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Re: Was Jesus a false prophet?

Post by hakeem »

John2 wrote: Wed Dec 06, 2017 8:18 pm hakeem wrote:
If a person is physically dead then a supposed spiritual resurrection on the third day would make no sense since such a person would be seen to be still dead and rotting.

It is simply absurd to suggest that if a dead body disappears that means it resurrected
Well, the idea of resurrection (physical or spiritual) is absurd to me, but this is how resurrection works according to my understanding of Paul. The physical body "dies" and is changed/transformed into a spiritual body, just like a seed doesn't stay a seed after it is sown; it is transformed into a new body.
Your understanding is not compatible with Christian teachings. You certainly do not understand the Pauline teachings on the resurrection.

Christian writers of antiquity used the Pauline writings to argue against a spiritual resurrection.

It is quite remarkable that you cannot understand that people in antiquity and even today believe a dead person can come back to life.

In the NT, it is claimed Lazarus was dead for four days and that he was bodily resurrected by Jesus.

Tertullian On the Resurrection of the Flesh
For if the resurrection of the flesh be denied, that prime article of the faith is shaken...
John2
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Re: Was Jesus a false prophet?

Post by John2 »

Ben wrote regarding the putative age of Symeon bar Clopas in Hegesippus:
The trouble I have with believing this particular number is that it is exactly how long Moses is said to have lived. I believe Rabbi Akiva, Hillel the Elder, and Yochanan ben Zakkai were all said to have lived 120 years, as well. I think this is an honorary device, not an accurate record of a great man's lifespan.
Well, of course. I agree. As I put it on another thread, "there is nothing unusual about that [age], since this is the age that Moses is said to have died so it is said of other important (and more or less contemporary) figures in Judaism as well, i.e., Hillel, Rabban ben Zakkai (the founder of post-70 CE Rabbinic Judaism) and Rabbi Akiva ..."

I am nevertheless comfortable with the idea that all of these people lived to a very old age, whatever the actual number may have been, and in Symeon's case, he is said to have lived up to Trajan's time, and that could be anywhere from 98 CE to 117 CE. So as far as guessing his actual age goes, it's really a matter of guessing when he was born.

Akiva, for example, is thought to have been born c. 50 CE and died c. 135 CE, making him approximately 85 years old according to non-hagiographic reckoning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbi_Akiva

By similar reckoning, if Symeon was born in 10 CE he would have been eighty-eight in 98 CE. If the idea that Akiva lived to 120 doesn't impinge on the idea that he was nevertheless a very old man, I don't see why the same wouldn't apply to Symeon. In both cases we know approximately when they died (sometime during the Bar Kokhba war for Akiva and sometime during Trajan's time for Symeon) and the date of their birth can only be guessed. And Akiva's case shows that there's nothing implausible about someone living to an old age and being martyred as a revered messianic leader in this time period.

And let's approach it from another angle by way of comparison. Josephus says that Essenes lived to be over a hundred in part "by means of the simplicity of their diet," and some Jewish Christians were similarly particular about their diet. James, for example, is said to have "drank no wine nor strong drink, nor did he eat flesh" in Hegesippus, Peter and others are presented as being vegetarians in the later Clementine writings, and Paul speaks of believers who "eat only vegetables" in Rom. 14:1-3:
Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them.


So it's not out of the realm of possibility that Symeon had a simple diet that contributed to his longevity as well.
Last edited by John2 on Thu Dec 07, 2017 5:32 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Was Jesus a false prophet?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

John2 wrote: Thu Dec 07, 2017 3:45 pm Ben wrote regarding the putative age of Symeon bar Clopas in Hegesippus:
The trouble I have with believing this particular number is that it is exactly how long Moses is said to have lived. I believe Rabbi Akiva, Hillel the Elder, and Yochanan ben Zakkai were all said to have lived 120 years, as well. I think this is an honorary device, not an accurate record of a great man's lifespan.
Well, of course. I agree. As I put it on another thread, "there is nothing unusual about that [age], since this is the age that Moses is said to have died so it is said of other important (and more or less contemporary) figures in Judaism as well, i.e., Hillel, Rabban ben Zakkai (the founder of post-70 CE Rabbinic Judaism) and Rabbi Akiva ..."
Ah, I see. I either missed that other post or forgot it.
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John2
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Re: Was Jesus a false prophet?

Post by John2 »

hakeem wrote:
Christian writers of antiquity used the Pauline writings to argue against a spiritual resurrection.
That doesn't necessarily mean that they were correct. Some Christian writers used Paul to support a spiritual resurrection. As the Wikipedia page for resurrection notes:
This [the resurrection of the flesh] was later rejected by gnostic teachings, which instead continued the Pauline insistence that flesh and bones had no place in heaven.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrect ... f_the_Dead
This understanding is also supported by Josephus' account of the Pharisees since Paul was a former Pharisee, as noted here:
The New Testament claims that the Pharisees believed in the resurrection, but does not specify whether this included the flesh or not. According to Josephus, who himself was a Pharisee, the Pharisees held that only the soul was immortal and the souls of good people will be reincarnated and “pass into other bodies,” while “the souls of the wicked will suffer eternal punishment.” Paul, who also was a Pharisee, said that at the resurrection what is "sown as a natural body is raised a spiritual body."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrect ... maritanism
It is quite remarkable that you cannot understand that people in antiquity and even today believe a dead person can come back to life.
I understand this, but I think that Paul nevertheless argues for a spiritual resurrection and that the gospel of Mark is in keeping with it.
In the NT, it is claimed Lazarus was dead for four days and that he was bodily resurrected by Jesus.
I think there is a difference between someone coming back to life and the resurrection that happens during the End Time. Lazarus, for example, is thought to have eventually died after he had come back to life and is thus still waiting for the resurrection of the End Time when people are supposed to live forever. As Dan. 12:2 and 1 Thess. 4:17 put it, "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life," and "so we will be with the Lord forever."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_o ... in_Bethany
Last edited by John2 on Thu Dec 07, 2017 7:27 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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John2
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Re: Was Jesus a false prophet?

Post by John2 »

As Dunn puts it:
But one thing seems to show that Paul's hope came from his Pharisaic past. That is his formulation of the resurrection body in 1 Corinthians 15. Here he understands a resurrection body which is not precisely flesh but perfected flesh, something consonant with Josephus' description of the Pharisees ... Paul's description of the resurrection assumes that we live as creatures of body and soul (soma psychikon) and will inherit a more spiritual body (soma pneumatikon). This is ... consonant with the Pharisaic ambiguity over the terms of the resurrection. That is hardly proof, but it is suggestive, and it is suggestive of the ways in which Paul remains difficult for later Christians.

https://books.google.com/books?id=TNXPG ... ul&f=false
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John2
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Re: Was Jesus a false prophet?

Post by John2 »

And Tappenden puts it this way:
Importantly, from the perspective of this study, the continuity of identity that Josephus stresses means that his language of reincarnation coheres nicely with the MICRO-PATH (CHANGE) structure; what is asserted is movement of a ψυχή from one container into another (i.e., from one body into another body ...). Within the analytical categories we have explored, Josephus's Pharisees utilize the RESURRECTION gestalt so as to make meaningful sense of death, the afterlife, and the intermediary state between. As I will show in chapters 4 and 5, Paul too exploits the MICRO-PATH (CHANGE) structure, though with a much more terrestrial focus. In all of these ways, though important differences between and Josephus's Pharisees exist at the descriptive level (i.e., at human scale), at the schematic level there is much coherence.

https://books.google.com/books?id=E6-_D ... ul&f=false
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John2
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Re: Was Jesus a false prophet?

Post by John2 »

And Endsjø puts it this way:
If Paul, indeed, was a Pharisee, this would explain his negative attitude toward the flesh ... according to Josephus, the Pharisees held only the soul to be immortal or believed in some form of reincarnation ... Josephus clearly depicts them as seeing the soul as the better part. Paul's negative attitude toward the flesh may thus relate to his Pharisaic background ... The way Paul compared the difference between our present and future nature with the difference between terrestrial and celestial bodies may be seen as connected to the astral immortality promised in the Book of Daniel and the Second Book of Baruch to the righteous who shall be resurrected.

https://books.google.com/books?id=PXnHA ... ul&f=false
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John2
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Re: Was Jesus a false prophet?

Post by John2 »

And Akenson writes:
... nowhere in his writings does Paul indicate a belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus. That is beyond argument. Moreover, within Paul's writings, there is a distinct implication that he accepted the resurrection only as a spiritual event.

https://books.google.com/books?id=40E8a ... ON&f=false
He offers good reasons for thinking this and then notes that:
The author-editors of the Gospels show some difficulty in making up their minds about what form Jesus' resurrection actually assumed. The Gospel of John, for example, within a single chapter has the resurrected Jesus being a phantasm who can pass through locked doors (John 20:19) and yet who also has corporeal solidity ... (John 20:27). Similarly, in Luke, the resurrected Jesus is described as an otherworldly figure who is able to move about invisibly (Luke 24:15-16, and 31), but just a few sentences later, Jesus is reported to show himself to the disciples in a body of an ordinary mortal ... (Luke 24:39). The Book of Acts, too, has it both ways.


Though he goes on to say that Mark "implies" a physical resurrection because of the empty tomb, I don't think it is incompatible with Paul's idea of a spiritual resurrection, since he says the physical body is "transformed" (1 Cor. 15:51-53; Php.3:21) into a new spiritual body. Here is an analogy he gives for this in 1 Cor. 15:36-38:
What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.


I think of it like popcorn. The kernel is like the "physical body" and it "dies" when it is "transformed" into popped corn, i.e., the "spiritual body." In other words, the kernel isn't left behind, it changes into something else. So maybe Jesus' physical body was not in the tomb because it had changed into a spiritual body and went to Galilee.

And maybe the stone was rolled away not because Jesus needed to physically get out of the tomb but because the young man had rolled it open to get in, like Joseph of Arimathea had rolled it shut in 15:46:
So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.
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John2
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Re: Was Jesus a false prophet?

Post by John2 »

And I think this view is in keeping with what Jesus himself says about resurrection in Mk. 12:24-25:
Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.
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