Did Jesus claim to be the messiah?

[atlashunter]

From the article; "My personal conviction and one which I believe is consistent with the Biblical teaching regarding the phrase is that the Father did turn His back on Jesus but for a moment. "

I trust the 1st century church more than a single voice from the 21st century.

Those church fathers you list had as much first hand knowledge of christ as someone living in the 21st century which is to say none whatsoever. Most of the contemporaries of Jesus didn't buy what he was selling. That's not what was predicted of the jewish messiah.

 

[bullethead]

I would like you to present those peoples thesis on those beliefs.

They stuck around with him until they were crispy.

 

[bullethead]

or presented them differently for different readers.

Why?
When someone says something that is quotable there is no need to present it as anything other than as exactly what was said.
If 2 gospel writers were there and heard something else then it would seem 2 may be right and 2 may be wrong. More likely, none of them were there and wrote to embellish the story they wanted told.

 

[Madman]

Why?
When someone says something that is quotable there is no need to present it as anything other than as exactly what was said.
If 2 gospel writers were there and heard something else then it would seem 2 may be right and 2 may be wrong. More likely, none of them were there and wrote to embellish the story they wanted told.

Different groups need different parts of the event emphasized.

 

[Madman]

Those church fathers you list had as much first hand knowledge of christ as someone living in the 21st century which is to say none whatsoever. Most of the contemporaries of Jesus didn't buy what he was selling. That's not what was predicted of the jewish messiah.

That is interesting. So in your opinion someone living in the age of an event, some may have been at the event, and others learned from people who were at the event, all who understand the customs and language of the time, have no more insite than someone 21 hundred years removed.

That is problematic.

 

[bullethead]

Different groups need different parts of the event emphasized.

For example....

 

[bullethead]

That is interesting. So in your opinion someone living in the age of an event, some may have been at the event, and others learned from people who were at the event, all who understand the customs and language of the time, have no more insite than someone 21 hundred years removed.

That is problematic.

So why would JUST church leaders witness or hear and record a monumental event such as the Literal Son of God in the Flesh saying, doing, dying and rising....yet NOBODY who lived it, not the educated, the wealthy, the Historians, the teachers the Roman authorities, the Jews, the Gentiles, the Pagans, The Moors ...NOBODY thought enough of what supposedly took place to Record it!?!?!?
No records of the Skys turning black, no mention of the Earth splitting open, not a word about graves opening and the Spirits flying about.
Follower or not, friend or foe, if you witness any or all such things you are going to make sure it is remembered and recorded.
History is Silent

 

[atlashunter]

That is interesting. So in your opinion someone living in the age of an event, some may have been at the event, and others learned from people who were at the event, all who understand the customs and language of the time, have no more insite than someone 21 hundred years removed.

That is problematic.

When you say in the age do you mean within a few centuries? If that’s the case then you live in the age of the signing of the constitution. Does that give you first hand knowledge? Are you able to speak directly with people who were eye witnesses to the event? Tertullian just to cite one example on your list was born in 155 AD. That’s 122 years after the crucifixion. And he lived in Carthage which is modern day Tunisia. Quite a distance from Judea especially in those times. His access to information would have been limited to the hearsay he got from other people and manuscripts he happened to get access to. Someone living in the 21st century has access not only to a broader body of work but the benefit of the distillation of knowledge on the subject gained by scholars who have studied all of the available materials and built upon previous scholarship. Tertullian was not an eye witness to the events described. He didn’t speak to anyone who was an eye witness because they would have been dead by the time he was born. Even the gospels themselves don’t claim to be eye witness accounts. Imagine living in a time where your knowledge of an event claimed to happen 120 years before your birth in a foreign land far from your birth and your source of learning about this event is oral tradition and hand copied manuscripts of accounts by anonymous authors written years after the events. That doesn’t exactly make your knowledge of what happened credible.

Nor is credibility assured by being a contemporary of the time. Many miracle stories circulated in those times and have continued to the present day. Many of which you probably reject.

Then of course there is the problem of disagreements between those early Christians on fundamental matters of theology. If their claims are so reliable why did they have such disagreements?

 

[bullethead]

When the word of god is disputable then it is time to question if it is really the word of god.

 

[bullethead]

Madman, What did George Washington say to his men before they crossed the Delaware?

 

[atlashunter]

It’s interesting that these early church fathers who were gentiles born after the life and death of Jesus are to be considered contemporaries that would know better than we if Jesus was god in the flesh while at the same time ignoring the vast majority of jews from Jesus time who rejected that very claim.

 

[WaltL1]

That is interesting. So in your opinion someone living in the age of an event, some may have been at the event, and others learned from people who were at the event, all who understand the customs and language of the time, have no more insite than someone 21 hundred years removed.

That is problematic.

Take your above ^ "qualifications" and apply them to modern day.
A "witness" testifies to Congress.
Literally 30 seconds, not 1 year, not 100 years, but 30 seconds later.... an R walks out and a D walks out and gives polar opposite opinions of what they just heard.
How da ya figure that can be?

 

[1gr8bldr]

If one reads the Church Fathers it is evident that they, those closest to the life of Christ, several who probably sat at his disciples feet, believed him to be God.

Polycarp
Justin the Martyr
Ignatius of Antioch
Irenaeus
Clement of Alexandria
Turtullian- Not a father but an apologist
Hippo of Rome
Origen

Hmmm, Long time since I studied this.... But I'm quite confident that nothing exist from Polycarp to imply that he thought Jesus was God. If I recall, someone else claimed Polycarp cried out something at his death, indicating this, yet it is words put in his mouth.... and it was in an arena of 1000 screaming people. So I don't believe anyone actually heard what Polycarp said, if he said anything. It leads us more to what the claimer believed rather than what Polycarp believed. Interesting time period. About the point that Jesus as God was evolving.

 

[1gr8bldr]

Jesus as God evolved not from oral passing but rather from our interpretations of the NT writings. In other words, they, the writers did not believe Jesus was God, yet later.... men discover a triune god within their writings. As if, it were inspired to be there. Jesus as God evolving is hard to prove that it was not, yet evolved. However, the Holy Spirit as a 3rd co equal person of the God head, was without doubt, without question, without dispute, not a church belief until after 325. The proof is easily seen for anyone whom is brave enough to look into it. And the triune godhead requires it to be so, otherwise, there is no trinity. Clearly not the "gospel first entrusted to the saints".

 

[Artfuldodger]

I think it would be easier to show the Father became the Son than a triune God.
Paul’s salutations in his letters usually mention both the Father and the Son but never mention the Holy Spirit.

 

[Artfuldodger]

I've come to the conclusion that Jesus is not God, but the Son of God. Beyond that, that's all I need to know. He was doing the will and works of His God and His Father through a type of Oneness or Unity.

Yet he was definitely a separate human man having his own body and soul.

 

[bullethead]

I've come to the conclusion that Jesus is not God, but the Son of God. Beyond that, that's all I need to know. He was doing the will and works of His God and His Father through a type of Oneness or Unity.

Yet he was definitely a separate human man having his own body and soul.

Yet even that way the Jews say that God making a human woman conceive his son is an abomination.

 

[Madman]

For example....

The jews needed a certain address and the gentiles needed a different approach.

Paul said " I am a Jew to the Jew and a gentile to the gentile.

 

[Madman]

Hmmm, Long time since I studied this.... But I'm quite confident that nothing exist from Polycarp to imply that he thought Jesus was God. If I recall, someone else claimed Polycarp cried out something at his death, indicating this, yet it is words put in his mouth.... and it was in an arena of 1000 screaming people. So I don't believe anyone actually heard what Polycarp said, if he said anything. It leads us more to what the claimer believed rather than what Polycarp believed. Interesting time period. About the point that Jesus as God was evolving.

"Now may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the eternal high priest himself, the Son of God Jesus Christ, build you up in faith and truth...and to us with you, and to all those under heaven who will yet believe in our Lord and God Jesus Christ and in his Father who raised him from the dead." Polycarp Phillipians 12:2

 

[bullethead]

The jews needed a certain address and the gentiles needed a different approach.

Paul said " I am a Jew to the Jew and a gentile to the gentile.

That does not explain why or why not the authors of the 4 gospels wrote Jesus said different things on the cross.