In a previous post, we discussed briefly some of the evidence suggesting the historicity of the "Son of God" sayings related to the historical Jesus. Jesus' self-perception was that he was the unique and absolute Son of God.
Implications of this view:
1)If Jesus saw himself as the only son of God, it implies that no other person (teacher, philosopher, spiritual leader, etc.) is the son of God in the exclusivistic sense in which Jesus is using the word. Therefore, all the pluralistic reconstructions of Jesus have to be false (and the question would be which are the motivations of the pluralistic "scholars").
2)Hence, Christians should be exclusivistic, non-pluralists (So-called Christian "pluralists" like Marcus Borg are not Christians at all, and his pluralistic reconstruction of the historical Jesus is largely based upon personal anti-Christian prejudices against the traditional view of Jesus, which cast doubts on the reliability and honesty of their research. After a careful reading the literature of these people, I've lost all intellectual respect for them and consider that their works are extremely misleading, spiritually dangerous, intellectually dishonest and I think they deserve to receive proper evidence-based debunking. This blog will be a space employed to this end).
3)Jesus' exclusivity as the only Son of God implies he saw himself as divine:
-Being the only "son" of God, he saw himself as participating of the ontological nature of the Father. If Jesus saw himself as merely (and uniquely) an human like any other, then his self-perception and condition as the exclusive son of God would be unjustified and purely arbitrary (Why Jesus alone and not other human beings?). Obviously, something in Jesus' specific nature makes him special regarding God (if his self-perception is veridical).
-A further indication of this self-perception of divinity is seen in Jesus modifying some of the laws given by God in the Old Testament. In the Jewish context, no human being has the authority to change God' laws, only God himself. Again, this shows Jesus' self-perception as a divine man. (This point will be discussed in more detail in future posts)
-A further indication of this would be Jesus' resurrection. All major Jesus scholars (of whatever theological persuasion) seems to agree openly that if Jesus' resurrection occured, then this event had some connection essential connection with God's intervention. And this is what we would expect if Jesus was actually the only son of God (i.e. we would expect a special, unique, dramatic vindication of Jesus' authority, nature, condition and teachings with an event without any precedent in human history).
But if Jesus didn't claimed to be God's unique son, and not special or particular divine condition (above all the other spiritual leaders) is particular of Jesus, then the resurrection, if occured, is essentially ambiguous, totally unexpected and even antecedently very improbable. It comes without a proper context for understading or explanation. Why exactly the resurrection would happen to Jesus, and not to the bunch of spiritual leaders of other religions and spiritual movements?
By the way, this clearly shows the superficiality, desperation (and hidden anti-Christian prejudices) of the attempts to explain the resurrection appealing yoga teachings, Buddhist methods, Chi Kung and so forth. Not only there is not solid evidence that these method allows their practitioners to reach the resurrection (in the sense in which it is applied to Jesus), but that no evidence exists that Jesus was a practitioner (let alone, an advanced one) of these methods.
And it would be massively misleading and dishonest of Jesus to preach about the Kingdom of God and his own exclusivistic status, if at the end his amazing deeds and miracles were consequence of a long and hard training in Chi Kung, Yoga, Tai Chi or (the largely atheistic) Buddhistic philosophies and methods (leaving, in addtion, no trace or evidence that these methods were instrumental to his miracles, specially when they were done appealing to the "Father").
The extreme implausibility of this position is obvious, and is the reason why no major Jesus scholar defends it. It only exists in the imagination of anti-Christian non-professionals in Jesus research.
Moreover and more telling, here we see another anti-Christian double standard. The same people who appeal to these (non-evidence based) speculations about Jesus, are the same who denies Jesus' self-perception as "divine" or the "Son of God" appealing to the supposed lack of evidence for these claims (which is false, as we have seen, since the evidence for some of the claims is pretty good).
The putative lack of evidence is used negatively to deny Jesus' divinity (in order to deny the traditional understanding of Jesus), but the same lack of evidence is used positively to make at least plausible or reasonable that God wasn't the cause of Jesus' resurrection (in order to deny the traditional concept of the resurrection as an event caused by God). Note that what determines the negative or positive use of the "lack of evidence" criterion is the way in which such a criterion is useful to undermine the traditional understanding of Jesus.
When the lack of evidence can be interpreted against Christianity, then wild speculations about Yoga, Buddhism, Chi Kung, etc. are sympathetically allowed as "plausible" alternatives to explain the resurrection. But the same criterion is not sympathetically allowed to defend the plausibility of Jesus' divinity or his resurrection caused by God. Clearly, the doble standard is obviously anti-Christain as any objective observer would easily recognize.
Religious pluralistic scholars are more consistent here. This is why they, consistent with their denial of Jesus' claims of exclusivity, also reject the factuality of Jesus' resurrection. Marcus Borg, for example, who has made a pluralistic version of the historical Jesus, denies the historicity of any claim by Jesus implying his divinity (and his exclusive divine connection with God). But in order to fancy himself as a "Christian", he uses the language of the resurrection in a misleading and idiosyncratic way (as an experiencied reality by the disciples and the Christians in general) while denies, evades (with red-herrings about "meanings" and "metaphors") or undermines the importance of, for example, the empty tomb for the historical assessment of the bodily resurrection.
I consider the approach to the Historical Jesus of people like Borg and other pluralists as fraudulent, dishonest and misleading.
Implications of this view:
1)If Jesus saw himself as the only son of God, it implies that no other person (teacher, philosopher, spiritual leader, etc.) is the son of God in the exclusivistic sense in which Jesus is using the word. Therefore, all the pluralistic reconstructions of Jesus have to be false (and the question would be which are the motivations of the pluralistic "scholars").
2)Hence, Christians should be exclusivistic, non-pluralists (So-called Christian "pluralists" like Marcus Borg are not Christians at all, and his pluralistic reconstruction of the historical Jesus is largely based upon personal anti-Christian prejudices against the traditional view of Jesus, which cast doubts on the reliability and honesty of their research. After a careful reading the literature of these people, I've lost all intellectual respect for them and consider that their works are extremely misleading, spiritually dangerous, intellectually dishonest and I think they deserve to receive proper evidence-based debunking. This blog will be a space employed to this end).
3)Jesus' exclusivity as the only Son of God implies he saw himself as divine:
-Being the only "son" of God, he saw himself as participating of the ontological nature of the Father. If Jesus saw himself as merely (and uniquely) an human like any other, then his self-perception and condition as the exclusive son of God would be unjustified and purely arbitrary (Why Jesus alone and not other human beings?). Obviously, something in Jesus' specific nature makes him special regarding God (if his self-perception is veridical).
-A further indication of this self-perception of divinity is seen in Jesus modifying some of the laws given by God in the Old Testament. In the Jewish context, no human being has the authority to change God' laws, only God himself. Again, this shows Jesus' self-perception as a divine man. (This point will be discussed in more detail in future posts)
-A further indication of this would be Jesus' resurrection. All major Jesus scholars (of whatever theological persuasion) seems to agree openly that if Jesus' resurrection occured, then this event had some connection essential connection with God's intervention. And this is what we would expect if Jesus was actually the only son of God (i.e. we would expect a special, unique, dramatic vindication of Jesus' authority, nature, condition and teachings with an event without any precedent in human history).
But if Jesus didn't claimed to be God's unique son, and not special or particular divine condition (above all the other spiritual leaders) is particular of Jesus, then the resurrection, if occured, is essentially ambiguous, totally unexpected and even antecedently very improbable. It comes without a proper context for understading or explanation. Why exactly the resurrection would happen to Jesus, and not to the bunch of spiritual leaders of other religions and spiritual movements?
By the way, this clearly shows the superficiality, desperation (and hidden anti-Christian prejudices) of the attempts to explain the resurrection appealing yoga teachings, Buddhist methods, Chi Kung and so forth. Not only there is not solid evidence that these method allows their practitioners to reach the resurrection (in the sense in which it is applied to Jesus), but that no evidence exists that Jesus was a practitioner (let alone, an advanced one) of these methods.
And it would be massively misleading and dishonest of Jesus to preach about the Kingdom of God and his own exclusivistic status, if at the end his amazing deeds and miracles were consequence of a long and hard training in Chi Kung, Yoga, Tai Chi or (the largely atheistic) Buddhistic philosophies and methods (leaving, in addtion, no trace or evidence that these methods were instrumental to his miracles, specially when they were done appealing to the "Father").
The extreme implausibility of this position is obvious, and is the reason why no major Jesus scholar defends it. It only exists in the imagination of anti-Christian non-professionals in Jesus research.
Moreover and more telling, here we see another anti-Christian double standard. The same people who appeal to these (non-evidence based) speculations about Jesus, are the same who denies Jesus' self-perception as "divine" or the "Son of God" appealing to the supposed lack of evidence for these claims (which is false, as we have seen, since the evidence for some of the claims is pretty good).
The putative lack of evidence is used negatively to deny Jesus' divinity (in order to deny the traditional understanding of Jesus), but the same lack of evidence is used positively to make at least plausible or reasonable that God wasn't the cause of Jesus' resurrection (in order to deny the traditional concept of the resurrection as an event caused by God). Note that what determines the negative or positive use of the "lack of evidence" criterion is the way in which such a criterion is useful to undermine the traditional understanding of Jesus.
When the lack of evidence can be interpreted against Christianity, then wild speculations about Yoga, Buddhism, Chi Kung, etc. are sympathetically allowed as "plausible" alternatives to explain the resurrection. But the same criterion is not sympathetically allowed to defend the plausibility of Jesus' divinity or his resurrection caused by God. Clearly, the doble standard is obviously anti-Christain as any objective observer would easily recognize.
Religious pluralistic scholars are more consistent here. This is why they, consistent with their denial of Jesus' claims of exclusivity, also reject the factuality of Jesus' resurrection. Marcus Borg, for example, who has made a pluralistic version of the historical Jesus, denies the historicity of any claim by Jesus implying his divinity (and his exclusive divine connection with God). But in order to fancy himself as a "Christian", he uses the language of the resurrection in a misleading and idiosyncratic way (as an experiencied reality by the disciples and the Christians in general) while denies, evades (with red-herrings about "meanings" and "metaphors") or undermines the importance of, for example, the empty tomb for the historical assessment of the bodily resurrection.
I consider the approach to the Historical Jesus of people like Borg and other pluralists as fraudulent, dishonest and misleading.
Demostrably (and I haven't found any exception yet), the people who are sympathetic to the work of the Jesus Seminar are people who have a very strong animosity and hostility against traditional Christianity. This animosity predisposes them to read the evidence in a way contrary to the traditional concept of Jesus. They have a double standard to judge the evidence, which antecedently favours the liberal position.
But when you read the evidence with objectivity, without prejudices for or against a certain view of Jesus (and not letting that your own opinion about what Jesus is or have to be determine your conclusions), you can eaasily realize that the liberal case of the Jesus Seminar for the historical Jesus is full of anti-Christian assumptions (which in this context is question-begging), atheistic-naturalistic pressupositions and pluralistic prejudices which are contrary to the evidence (The evidence suggests supernatural elements or contexts, like the teaching about God's Kingdom or the resurrection; exclusivistic elements, like Jesus being the only son of God, and claims implying Jesus' divinity like his claims of being the only son of God, which suggests an unique divine nature above mere human nature, and more importantly Jesus' claims of authority in matters which only belong to God).
In future posts, I'll show with concrete examples and solid evidence how the Jesus Seminar favours certain sources (e.g. the Gospel of Thomas) misusing the criteria of authenticity (the criteria used by scholars to determine which sayings by Jesus are likely to be historical) in a way which favours its anti-Christian and pluralistic reconstruction of the historical Jesus.
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