The importance of the words

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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Nick,

I agree that the teachings of Jesus (as well as those of Moses) are brilliant when looked at through the prism of the human psyche. But I contend that they are also stunning Philosophical, metaphysical, scientific and quantum-physical writings. So rather than argue that they are one or the other, we need to hear what a person who has a profound understanding of the psychological meanings can offer to one who sees clearly the metaphysical meanings. If we are open, then each will compliment the other. It becomes not a joining in adversarial conflict, but a joining in symbiotic expansion. A clear psychological understanding will clarify to an even greater degree a clear metaphysical understanding and visa versa.

But before we can enter into that meaningful discussion, I think we have to agree on the words: what was said, what was written, what was meant, literally, in context, and in the historical framework.

As I said before, the simple distinction between “The Son of God” and “A Son of God” is profound. What did Jesus mean by “Father”, “God”, and “Kingdom”. What did Moses mean by “God”, “Garden of Eden”, and “Tree of Knowledge”. We can’t just leave ourselves to interpret them however we feel at the moment. We have to give Jesus and Moses the benefit that they knew what they were attempting to communicate, and like any good communicator they would not mix metaphors.

In clarifying which is appropriate we can put aside our preconceptions and attempt to fathom the depths with greater clarity, to follow the threads of meaning wherever they might lead us, even to those places where we fear to tread, confronting those taboos that we fear to confront. I believe that this is what the words of Jesus and Moses offer us, from the 23rd Psalm to Jesus’ promise of life more abundant.

Dunamis,

I hope you do not mind that I use your thoughts from another thread to open this one. It is just that your questions are so profound and on point.

Jesus was her neighbor and she was expressing her love and compassion for her neighbor. If you understood the importance of anointing of the dying in that part of the world, you would understand that this interpretation is far from weak. Anointing the dying was a hugely important ritual to the Hebrew peoples as well the early Christians. In modern terms, she was giving Jesus the last rights and the apostles missed the point.

Love and compassion are not expressed only for the poor. If a rich man were dying and his son walked by and said, “I can’t be here, I have to help at the soup kitchen.” Would that be compassionate just because he was helping poor people? If you were on your way to donate five dollars to the poor and you saw a child who happened to be wealthy but who was in distress and needed a ride home would it be more compassionate and caring to walk by and give the five dollars to the poor or to pay for a cab to get the child home?

Congratulations! You have hit the nail right on the head. In this quote of what Jesus is ascribed to have said you have come upon what I believe is an example of one of the major misrepresentation of Jesus words in the Biblical texts. His use of the words I AM.

This is an extremely complex subject because it involves the culture and language of ancient Egyptian times as well as the culture and language of the times of Moses and those of Jesus. It is too dense to attempt to address in detail here. I will try to address it in general terms as best I can.

There has been a purposefully orchestrated dissemination of misinformation about the language Jesus spoke. It has been the mainstream scholarly belief that Jesus, the disciples and those he preached to spoke Aramaic. This is true. But, using the same evidence to conclude that Jesus spoke Aramaic, one would also have to conclude that he spoke Hebrew and Ancient Hebrew: see Luke 4:16-19. Aramaic is a language related to Hebrew like Italian is related to Spanish. There is no reason to believe that Jesus did not intersperse his teachings with Ancient Hebrew utilizing the same words as Moses or Isaiah.

The release of Mel Gibson’s movie on the crucifixion has stirred some scholars to question the veracity of Jesus speaking only Aramaic. Jesus was in all likelihood a rabbi. His knowledge of Ancient Hebrew would be as extensive as any Roman Catholic theologian’s knowledge of Latin (the language still used today for scholarly theological debate at the Vatican). It more likely than not that in addition to preaching in Aramaic, he interspersed his teaching with Ancient Hebrew Torah words and references.

To keep it simple, with the above in mind, there is a school of thought that is being more and more accepted that very often when Jesus used the words “I am” he was not referring to himself, but was referring to the name of god from Exodus 3. So a better translation of “I am the way, the truth and the life” is “I AM is the way, the truth and the life”. Keep the “I am” in ancient Hebrew and Jesus may well have said, “HAYEH is the way, the truth and the life.” The most stunning example of this is John 8:24 “for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.” The “he” is often italicized or parenthesized and has a footnote that basically says, “added by the translator”. Even in the Greek (far removed from the Aramaic dialect that Jesus may well have spoken) it translates as “for if ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins.” In addition the word that is translated as “that” is more often than not translated as “because” or simply omitted to convey actual meaning than it is translated as “that”. So an even clearer rendering would be, “for if ye believe not I am, ye shall die in your sins.” Understanding that “I am” is the name of god given to Moses in Exodus 3, you come up with “for if ye believe not HAYAH, ye shall die in your sins.”

Scholars are working feverishly on this. One of them, Neil Douglas Klotz, writes, “Aramaic is a very allegorical, storytelling language. Aramaic and old Hebrew are almost twins, Christians might be surprised at the biblical nuances. In Aramaic, for example, “good” means “ripe” and “evil” means “that which is unripe.” His research of Jesus’ language shows that the ancient Semitic mind of Jesus and the Hebrew prophets saw nature and creation as unified, predating the overriding idea of heavenly perfection and the fall of nature. “There is no real strict separation between heaven and earth; between inner spiritual life and outer communal life; no strict separation between mind and body or soul or emotion”.

Paul was a master wordsmith who wrote his own script (epistles), which is translated from the original Greek into English, but we will allow any brain twisting interpretation to fit our preconceptions. But the words of Jesus which were not written by him, which were written down by others from memory years later and which were spoken in Aramaic and Ancient Hebrew we want to hold to a strict translation criteria.

You quote other passages – one concerning rebuilding the temple in 3 days. I assume you do not think that Jesus was talking about rebuilding the physical temple in Jerusalem. I you do, then you don’t need to read on. If you think that Jesus did not mean the physical structure, we have to ask “what did he mean?” The word for temple in Aramaic and Ancient Hebrew has many meanings. It can mean “meeting place” as in a structure. It can also mean sacred time, place or season as well as sacred sign or symbol. Perhaps they misunderstood his meaning (see the next verse). In fact in Mark 14:58, Jesus makes clear what he is saying: “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands” or Matthew 26:61, “I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days”. Why 3 days and not 7? Why days? Is it a reference to Genesis when god created the world in 7 days? If so, the Ancient Hebrew word for days also has multiple meanings because it obviously could not be indicating sunrise to sunset because there was no sun until the 4th “day”. And how the hell did he have light and dark on the first day without a sun? Because it is a poetic, metaphoric statement, not a literal one. The meaning of the number 3 in the Torah is the expression of the divine in the material world. 1 being divine and 2 being physical or material: 1+2=3. Man is a physical expression of the divine on the material plane. These are intellectual concepts of metaphysical understandings and as such are difficult to convey. That is why Moses spoke in metaphor and Jesus in allegory. Other writers, Paul included, spoke in these ways. A major issue with Paul is that he put his literary skills to the service of concepts that helped obscure the message of Jesus and Moses.

The old adage that “God made man in his own image and likeness and man returned the favor” holds true with translation and interpretation of scripture. More often than not we impose our own image onto the words of scripture. To paraphrase Emerson, we need to “get our bloated nothingness out of the way”. Search, discuss, question, but do so with an open mind and heart and the joy and curiosity of a child. Listen to what others are saying as if maybe they have something to contribute, not as we too often do, prepare our rebuttals even as they are speaking.

A few general notes: “The Son of God” is actually better translated as “A Son of God”. Jesus refers to “Father” as “My Father”, “The Father”, “Our Father”, and “Your Father”, not as only his father.

If we are to give that much leeway to Paul who wrote his own words and is translated from his Greek, we should apply the same criteria to Jesus and take into account the distance his spoken Hebrew and Aramaic words are from the written English we quote.

Jew, Christians and Muslims have killed each other for centuries in the name of religion. It is too serious a subject to address glibly. Try reading the words of Jesus in juxtaposition to the teachings of Moses. Try to restructure the words of Jesus as they might have been spoken in the ancient Hebrew of Moses or the Galilean dialect of Aramaic at the time. Understand that the words of Jesus that we have in English are distant from the words he spoke: Spoken Ancient Hebrew/Galilean dialect Aramaic, to written Aramaic, to written Greek, to written Latin to English in the King James translation. The transition from Aramaic to Greek is profound because Aramaic had much more in common with Hebrew than with Greek, Latin or English.

All the best.

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Water,

I have found all of your “tactics” extreme contortions to evade the plain and simple meaning of the text. Jesus may have said “x” in Hebrew? Come on now. The fact is Jesus, in much more specific terms than ever Paul did, in the actual texts, refers to himself in a more than regular guy way. I will raise one question on something you have repeated often

" “The Son of God” is actually better translated as “A Son of God"

Where in the world to you get this? The article before the word designates it as “the”, especially in the context of the specifications that are being made.

Dunamis

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Hi Waterlover

Yes, this is an obstacle which we will have to overcome but if we try to retain some personal objectivity, it is theoretically possible to transcend even this.

I do appreciate what you are trying to do.

I agree as to the depth of ancient psychology. It is not the behaviorism of today that identifies itself as psychology but instead the study of man’s “being”. Man as a microcosm within a series of cosmoses culminating at the highest which some refer to in their own way as God, contains within him precisely the same laws as does the external universe. So quantum physics exists within Man’s being and can be understood in perspective through psychology in the real meaning of the term…

What is said is one thing and putting it into the context of what is meant is another. Understanding what was meant requires personal experience. This is why in Zen the goal is for the experience of satori and in Christianity it is gnosis. Once one has the experience it becomes clear what is meant.

The Bible uses the Tower of Babel to describe the cumulative effects of these feverish scholars.

The gospels for me are psychological. They speak mainly of an inner evolution: re-birth. It refers to man on earth being able to experience an inner evolution if exposed to a teaching that initiates from the goal of re-birth or higher consciousness. It is the growth of “understanding” in the real meaning of the word, with the whole of oneself, and not just a part.

To accomplish this the gospels were written in a certain way to bypass our normal inclination to conceptualize superficially so that we can be touched in the deeper more essential aspects of our being.

The purpose of sacred text is to convey a deeper meaning than the literal words themselves so that the truths they contain can be experienced internally rather than interpreted egotistically.

You asked about the meaning of the word Jesus and the name Christ. From the perspective of inner evolution, there is the law and the good of the law. the truth of the law refers to your being as it is and the good refers to the results of the development of man’s being. From this perspective, Christ refers to the truth that can lead a person towards the good and “Jesus” refers to the “good” itself. “Jesus Christ”, used only twice in the gospels and both times in John refers to the unification of the good and the truth. for example:

The expression “I am” is another that is seen differently from the point of view of inner evolution.

“I am” is completion. God is “I am” and Jesus is “I am” only on a different scale where one “I am” exists within the other or as you say the wave is in the sea.

We don’t have “I” but exist as Buddhism suggests as a plurality. “Am” is our inner creation as it flows from 'I", But since we no longer have “I” and exist as a plurality severed from the direction of “I” we cannot “am” in the real meaning of the word. Instead we just react as does all organic life. So the direction leading towards “I am” 'is the way. But to see this requires the experience rather than rationalization of inner diversity.

How then to read sacred text including the Bible so as not to let the literal meaning necessary to transmit the psychological meaning block the psychological truth or it. It is part in the words but real understanding requires becoming open to its meaning rather than allowing our ego to block it from being repulsed by it since it denies its importance.

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Dunamis,

I love your sweeping generalities. Try and address specifics.

By the way, it’s not my “extreme contortions”; I would not dare take the credit! Check Erasmus, Wycliffe, John Hus, Merton, and de Chardin among others who studied the original Greek and Hebrew and read what they had to say. So much for an open mind.

I will respond to your one specific.

Please reference the original Greek (chapter and verse) to show me where there is an article before the word son [huios] that should be translated as “the”.

I call to your attention that the exact same Greek word translated as “The Son” is translated more often as “a son” or simply “son”. The only times the words are capitalized (which they are not in the original) and translated as “The Son” in when they reference Jesus. This was the translator’s decision. Please remember that the translation was done under the auspices of religious powers that had adopted the Nicene Creed centuries earlier. These church powers only allowed Latin translations to be used. There is a history of men who tried to reconcile the original Greek and Hebrew with the Latin that the Church insisted upon. Some of them were executed for this. The history of the Bible from Greek and Hebrew to Latin then English is available if you are interested.

All the best.

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Nick,

I read and re-read your last post. It seems to me that we are in similar places. One place is that words don’t seem to easily express what either of us is trying to say. I fully agree with you when you say:

That is what gnosis really is.

You see in all the complexity that is there and try to address it. I see the complexity and try to reduce it to something that is translatable into simple concepts and words. I address the Bible because it is the simplest available western (?) conceptualization of these complexities. When I read Moses or Jesus or Lao-tse, it seems so clear and simple. I am dumbfounded at how few can simply hear the words for what they mean. I guess that is our “bloated nothingness” that Emerson spoke about.

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Waterlover

It is hard to explain these things. I may try to address the complexity but what does that mean? Does one explain the complexity from being within the complexity or from taking complexity as a whole?

Understanding the universe and human consciousness in terms of a triune principle rather than duality helps me here. Can the ever clashing duality or complexity be reconciled from a third principle of consciousness?

This reconciliation is not simplification from exclusion but of the experience of complete and impartial inclusion of everything without judgment from a part of it. It is like looking at a great churning wave where its elemental forces are in chaotic opposition. Is one part better than another? It may appear so from the point of view of something trapped within it, but from the higher perspective of looking down upon it, the chaos is equal.

There is a danger here with gnosis or satori. Unfortunately, the ever growing influence of “experts” only serves to increase this danger. Having knowledge without perspective can temporarily lead to some genuine experiences but lacking perspective, the ego quickly interprets them for its own use and the results can be disastrous.

Mental institutions are filled with those that have misused higher experiences. These emotions (evil spirits) that result from egotistic compensation are very powerful and can grow to completely dominate and consume a person…

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

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Water.,

I love your sweeping generalities. Try and address specifics.

Please reference the original Greek (chapter and verse) to show me where there is an article before the word son [huios] that should be translated as “the”.

We will go one at a time, because you have a tendency not to address specific language.

“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

Luke 10:22

“kai oudeis yinoskei tis estin ho huios”

Dunamis

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Water.,

[One more comment before you respond because I was rushed this morning. But I would appreciate it if you respond to the post above first.]

To keep it simple, with the above in mind, there is a school of thought that is being more and more accepted that very often when Jesus used the words “I am” he was not referring to himself, but was referring to the name of god from Exodus 3. So a better translation of “I am the way, the truth and the life” is “I AM is the way, the truth and the life”. Keep the “I am” in ancient Hebrew and Jesus may well have said, “HAYEH is the way, the truth and the life.”

This is complete nonsense. The Greek is plain “Ego eimi he hodos”, “I am the path”. The insertion of “ego” makes it very clear that the emphasis is on “I”. The sentence could be written without the “ego” simply by using the verb “to be” alone, which is a perfectly grammatical sentence. By placing “ego” there, utterly superfluous in Greek unless to add emphasis, your interpretation is actually furthest from the meaning implied. What is meant here is “I” -not anyone else- am the path. In addition, just one chapter later Jesus puts even greater emphasis on his personal position between the father and the believer, in the parable of the vine.

First he makes very clear the distinction between himself and the father, so that the very same “I am” [ego eimi] you contort in chapter 14, cannot be confused with any torturous theory of ancient Hebrew,

“I am [ego eimi] the true vine, and my [mou] Father is the gardener.” John 15:1

Then he specifies the dependence of the believer upon him. The Greek is very clear.

“I am [ego eimi] the vine and you are the branches. The one remaining in me [moi] and I [kago] in him, this one bears much fruit, because apart from me [emou] you can do nothing.” John 15:5

“Ego eimi”, in Greek carrying strong personal pronoun emphasis, here doubled by the same pronoun of “me” [emou] and “mine” [moi], is very clearly a statement about oneself. You are wide of the mark in translating these texts.

The end of verse 5 is unequivocal in the Greek, hoti [because] choris [apart] emou [from me] ou [not] dunasthe [you are able] poiein [to make/do] ouden [nothing]. Double negatives do not exist in the Greek, but are used for emphasis.

“because without me you can do absolutely nothing”.

Dunamis

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Nick,
I understand what you say.

To clarify what I meant, I will a personification. If you are at God’s earlobe and I am at his finger, I would love to understand what you see from your perspective and am dying to share what I see from mine. The problem I have and I was sensing that you run into as well is that we communicate through words and sometimes they don’t suffice. If your experience of God is triune and mine singular and yet we touch the same God, you have something to impart that will expand my experience. Touching the earlobe or the finger is unimportant. One is not better than the other. I believe that God is all, and true living is the joy of reveling in the consciousness of being one with God. That is what I think Jesus meant by “life more abundant.”

All the best.

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Hi Watelover

Intent is everything. If you want to share we can do it. Usually people just want to argue or justify their beliefs and it’s becoming increasingly rare to meet those that get greater satisfaction from trying to understand then in ridicule and condemnation. So we’ll give it a shot.

You do appear to come on strong but I guess it’s just style. I have this trouble myself appearing so matter of fact to many with concepts that are new and unusual. It’s like “who are you to think and say such things?” This is why I stress inner verification whenever possible. When trying to defend Paul’s description of our being as that of the “wretched man”, I know it is insulting so all I can do is suggest to look inside and see for yourself.

On my path though I can’t get off easy. The cause of hurt feelings or insult and the like is always in me so I can’t pass the buck and blame another. It took a few growls to see the good sense in that.

This is where we might have our first difficulty. You quoted Emerson’s observation of our bloated nothingness. I believe Paul to be right and if so, as we are, we are unable to partake in the God/Man relationship. It exists as a quality of re-birth.

Are you willing to discuss even though I am maintaining what may appear as a very depressing and unpleasant perspective?

On my path though I can’t get off easy. The cause of hurt feelings or insult and the like is always in me so I can’t pass the buck and blame another. It took a few growls to see the good sense in that.

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Perhaps not so true a statement. The emperor gods were rather cheap as cows in comparison with Jove himself, Ceasar was made but nobody worshiped him. As for Octavian, I’d imagine that only small groups of pesants scattered around the country-side of Italy actually took the fruits to his temple and prayed full heatedly. I don’t think anyone in big towns brought the crap - tradition is tradition, nothing else. Surely nobody really knew much about him in the eastern provinces and the Egyptions must had hated him after what happend to their beloved queen, and the Gauls in the west were surely busing worshiping their own gods. So generally, to say that Octuvian was worshiped is a little mis-leading I’d say.

The autobiography proves that. But it serves to confirm the fact that being “gods” weren’t that holily a nice thing - people knew it in their hearts, so surely did the man himself and to spare all the pretencious crap that everybody has to follow, he’s falling in line with his usual nice-politics again. So Christians, the Romans no longer had the ego to accept some high divinities, howd hell you guys get so cheap and easy?

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Dunamis,

The oldest existing Ancient Greek version of Luke 10:22 that I know of reads:

Oudeis ginosko tis huios esti ei me pater
No one knows who son is except father
Nothing
The above rendering is taken from texts dating between the 2nd and 5th centuries AD. I believe yours is in Traditional Greek and is a later variation. Please let me know if you have other information.

As far as your other thoughts I will try to get back to you later.

All the best.

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Nick,

I think it is one of the weaknesses of our times and internet posting in general. God forbid that I should take responsibility for my word choice!

In times past, when people would write, their letters (whether to friends or family, male or female) would always open with expressions of love, concerns for children, family or spouses, news of what they were doing and interest in what the other person was up to. In this age of quick-paced response from one person who does not know the other person, combined with the tone that discourse takes on in these days – both in print, in person and on the airwaves – and we have an atmosphere in which it is difficult to establish trust and understanding. It is a challenge to any writer.

I absorbed your thoughts on Paul and the concept of the “wretched man”. You are right that I have difficulty with the concept. My difficulty is a metaphysical one. It is one of the concepts that I believe separates Paul and Jesus. Let me state my view first so that it does not appear that I an attacking yours.

I believe that I am a true Christian. By that I mean I believe in the principles and teachings of Jesus. I do not believe that he was nor is God. I do not believe in the Nicene Creed. Christianity existed prior to the Nicene Creed and exists today without accepting the Nicene Creed. I believe he was human. I do not believe that he was right all the time. I do not believe in rituals, Easter or Christmas. I could just as easily say that I am a Taoist. I find Lao-tse to be brilliant. I love to read him. He makes me laugh out loud at myself. I simply find Jesus’ understandings a bit more available to my particular way of thinking. I also think that I get a real kick out of turning Jesus’ words back on the religious that I know and then watch them twist themselves into corkscrews trying to interpret his words. But that is for another discussion.

I put my belief in Jesus teachings in the category of belief on the same level as my belief in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. There are many places where Darwin may be off the mark in his thinking, but I believe in the overall theory and concept. He was just a man. His theories are human theories. His errors do not negate his entire work, nor does one have to accept his entire work as fact. That is why it is a theory. In that way, Jesus’ teachings about life are theories as well (as are Lao-tse’s). The difference is that we have Darwin’s exact words in their native tongue. We do not have Jesus’ in that way. I don’t know if I can say that I am a Jew, but I also believe that Moses passed on to us a transcendent concept of God.

You use the word re-birth, I use the word restore. To you if feels like moving forward, the discovery of something new. To me it feels like a going back, the return to something old. It is probably the same thing. I believe that in this realm, there is no time. All eternity exists in the moment. So I can think I am going back and being restored and you can think you are moving forward and being reborn. In actuality it is probably neither and both. It is simply our individual perception put into inadequate words. What both concepts have in common is change. Jesus actually said both, “Lest you be like a child you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven”, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Jesus also so, “As you believe, so it is done.” That is my issue with Paul’s concept of the “wretched man”. If I believe I am wretched, then I am. This is where Moses comes in for me. Whenever I hear the words “I am”, I immediately think of Moses, Exodus 3, the burning bush and the name of God. I know I appear like a fanatic with this, but to me it is seminal. If Moses’ verbalization of God’s name is I AM, then what is blasphemy (taking the name of the lord in vain)? I say that it means you shouldn’t use the words “I am” in a way that is false. There is a commandment about bearing false witness against thy neighbor. This commandment is about what you call yourself. How you identify yourself. I look at Jesus, “as you believe, so it is done” as a similar statement. The statement “I am a wretched man” would be blasphemous if held up against the background of what Jesus said. (I am not attacking here; I am explaining my thoughts and understandings.) I believe that we are all in and of God. In that way we are perfect.

Another thought just came to me – if I were to put it in words that I could understand, is what is meant by “wretched man” really the same as “wretched state”? Is it a description of our state of existence when we are disconnected from spirit in mind? Is a wretched man one who does not comprehend his own divinity? I shy away from harsh words when describing mankind. Is this simply a harsh word (to my ear) used by Paul to describe the consequence of a place in mind? Is it a variation on the way I see hell? That state of consciousness that is invested only in fear and the material world? Where our spiritual connection (the Kingdom of God within us) is buried? If I am close enough, then my disagreement with Paul on this matter is semantics – words are so important to me but often such a waste of time. Am I close on this?

You said this twice and I don’t think I understand it enough to respond. The syntax is difficult for me. So is the metaphor (growls). I am not saying this in any other way except to indicate what I think are the reasons for my lack of understanding (of course I am leaving out my own limited intellect, but what the hell). I know this may sound condescending, but it is not meant that way in any manner, shape or form. It would be helpful to me if you were to express these thoughts in simple sentences – as if you were explaining it to a child. It is so difficult for me to discern the depths of meaning sometimes that I need the other person to rephrase to help me. One thing I have noticed with regard to these kinds of communications is that very often people respond (in length and with great emotion) to something that the other person never said. So when I don’t get something I am going to ask for a greater explanation. If I do this in a brief sentence like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about”, it sounds like an attack. I am not attacking, I am asking so I can understand.

All the best.

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Water.,

Please cite your source here. (I am reading from the New Testament eds. Brooke Foss Westcott, Fenton John Anthony Hort, and from Eberhard Nestle’s Novum Testamentum Graece which matches it.) Secondly, if you would please explain the meaning of the text if “the son” should be translated “a son”? The passage is particularly about priviledged information, the distinction between his private access to “all things” which were “given to” him which he chooses [bouletai] to reveal to others.

Dunamis

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Dunamis,

You are correct, the Greek you reference is very clear. However the oldest extant texts of the Greek are not as clear. You dismiss the fact that in all probability Jesus spoke in Aramaic and Ancient Hebrew (this is if he existed at all of course). You dismiss the fact that is undisputed: That we have no record that Jesus ever wrote down any of this. You simply state this is what we have and that’s all.

Before you dismiss an idea as “ridiculous” before trying to completely understand it, see whose company you may be keeping. The same was said by the informed community about Pasteur who was ridiculous enough to think that little tiny creatures got into you and made you sick – he called it “Germ Theory”— or Semmelweis who was uninformed enough to ignorantly suggest that doctors should wash their hands before performing surgery. There are many theories that have been dealt with in the same way. In fact, right now, Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is under attack in a similar manner that you object to my proposition.

By the way, if Jesus really thought he was god, how could he say, “All these things I do, you too can do, and more…”?

In answer to your other question, for the most part I use the Codex Bezae. It is a wonderful reference both in the Greek and Latin. It is available in hardback, but I have never looked for it online. When there is time I will check that with older texts, but that can be tedious work.

All the best.

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Water.,

You dismiss the fact that in all probability Jesus spoke in Aramaic and Ancient Hebrew (this is if he existed at all of course).

I do not dismiss the fact, I foreclose it. We do not have those words, and to hypothesize about them, especially under the rubric of calling Aramaic allegorical –and therefore licensing you to an entire imagination of meanings- is simply dreaming up meanings, behind meanings, risking projection and even further inventing a Christ.

You simply state this is what we have and that’s all.

This is exactly what I state. For you to assert that Paul altered Jesus’ message, but to infer that Jesus’ message was in Aramaic and therefore something you or anyone else as access to, in contradiction to the erroneous gospels is really to stretch credibility. You have no text. The only thing we can do is compare Paul’s texts to the texts of the extant Gospels, and if you do you will discover a Christ that in the Gospels who asserted his own unique and powerful position between humanity and “the Father”.

Before you dismiss an idea as “ridiculous” before trying to completely understand it, see whose company you may be keeping.

You pretend to know that I have not considered these arguments. I am rather familiar with them. I dismissed them after looking into them because they seem unsubstantiated and motivated by pre-conceived ends. All your references to dismissed theories that were later accepted is the kind of reasoning that grants “proof” to any theory at all, an absolutely substanceless point. Copernicus was not believed, therefore I must be right is bizarre reasoning.

By the way, if Jesus really thought he was god, how could he say, “All these things I do, you too can do, and more…”?

Instead of bringing up another quote, please stick to the text I brought before you, John 15:5. You contend the “I am” is some vague reference to ancient Hebrew, yet you seem unable to account for the very same phrase in the vine and branches parable just a few verses later, where it occurs beside “me” and “mine”. You yourself mentioned that the parables must represent the closest thing to Jesus’ own teachings. Please do interpret this text and the way “I am” is being used in it.

As to your new verse, again, I do not know what the exact meaning of “believed himself to be god” is, but as the vine parable which follows it says, we are absolutely powerless without him, so all the things one would do would be things that we only do through him. Read the rest of the verse you quoted because it actually makes this rather clear:

Truly, truly I tell you, the one believing in me will do the works that I do, and greater than these he will do…because I am going to the Father, and whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Son may glorify the father." John 14:12-13

In other words, you can do what I have done, and greater things even because I am going to Heaven and if you ask the Father in my name, I will do these things[poieso], as the Son. Rather than being a text that asserts that all or even some are as great as he, rather he asserts that from heaven he himself will do those “greater things”, that are asked for.

Dunamis

20

Waterlover

This is what makes a discussion like this so difficult. It would require a lot of ground work to find the place at which we agree and then develop out from it.

We define a Christian differently

What you call a Christian, I call a pre-Christian. Would you define a pianist as a person who only believes in the principles and teachings of piano theory? I don’t think so. A pianist must be able to play the piano and not just believe in principles.

As I understand it, a person must be able to live by the commandments from an emotional realization of their value and not just know them. So for me, a Christian is one who lives in accordance with the teaching. A pre-Christian is one who knows the teaching but as yet is unable to live it, and a non-Christian is one who has no interest in it.

Consider this from the points of view of an acorn and an oak… The acorn is born again as an oak but from the position of the oak, the acorn is restored as an oak. What they have in common though is a change of being. The acorn and oak exist at different levels of being.

Unless a person becomes open as of a child without preconception and unattached to the husk of the acorn or the earthly existence but instead be able to feed off of it through its impartial experience, the kernel of life within cannot begin its transformation.

This is why it is so imperative not to believe anything but verify for yourself. “Know thyself.” Don’t believe experts but instead “Know Thyself.” It must be your impartial experience for it to have any value.

We do it all the time. We are not “I am”. As a plurality we exist as “we are.” Each part of “we” temporarily asserts itself as “I” and the continuum gives the impression of unity.

The commandment of taking the name of God expresses a deep inner psychology. The idea is not God getting insulted but the name “God” has a way of centering us and attracting higher qualities of materiality that nourishes the spiritual sides of ourselves. When we use God in expressions of negative emotion it feels good for our ego because it uses throws off precisely this fine materiality that nourishes our inner life.

This is true but as a plurality, what do you collectively believe? This is why we lack force. As the wretched man we are in opposition with ourselves and the teaching deals with this opposition in a way we are incapable of.

Actually consciousness doesn’t deny our inner states, it reconciles them. Part of inner opposition is the recognition of our potential but the reality that must be personally verified is that as we are, we are incapable of it and need help.

By this I meant that it is our own emotional states that allow for the interpretation of insult rather then what someone may say.

Take for example that someone calls you a stupid @#$% while at work. You may be insulted. Now suppose you are getting ready to leave the office and you get a phone call that Uncle Harry had passed away and left you 2,000,000 in his will. You shout out: “My ship has come in.” Now the same person may say the same thing and you won’t care at all because your own inner state has changed. If we are not caught up in ourselves and spiritually aware in the context of the human condition, there is nothing to be insulted about. By “growl”, I mean my egotistic protest. Such an idea denies my self importance and for a broad shouldered Aries male, is not the most flattering experience.