Tag: Jesus
-
Rethinking Jesus (12) God in the flesh?
It’s my belief that Jesus made no claim to be Yahweh, the Jewish God, made flesh. As a devout Jew, such a claim would’ve stuck in his throat. In John’s Gospel, he does say, “I am”, which is what God called himself in the Book of Exodus. That Gospel, however, belongs to the late 1st […]
-
Jordan Peterson Hits the Target
Jordan Peterson, whatever else you may think about him, in my view, hits the target with this, for blog readers and writers, and for everyone else as well. “Almost all ideas are wrong. And it doesn’t matter if they’re your ideas or someone else’s ideas. They’re probably wrong and, even if they strike you with […]
-
Rethinking Jesus (11) Raised from the dead?
No one can definitively prove, or disprove, that Jesus was raised from the dead. It’s a matter of personal belief, not historical fact. To me, without doubt, some of his followers believed they’d seen him alive again, otherwise he’d most likely have disappeared into the small print of history. Socrates said “an unexamined life is […]
-
Rethinking Jesus (08) The Pharisees (i)
In the Gospels, the Pharisees seem to be Jesus’ most persistent opponents, and Matthew devotes a whole chapter (23) to giving them what he clearly considers a well deserved roasting. Jesus is said to regard them as “Snakes and children of snakes”, “deserving of going to Hell’. “On the outside”, he says, “you appear good […]
-
Rethinking Jesus (06) His Core Message
According to Mark, (the earliest Gospel), after his baptism and self-questioning in the wilderness, and “after John (the Baptist) had been put into prison”, Jesus launched an evangelistic mission in Galilee, but there’s a complication here. In John’s gospel, Jesus, “in the province of Judea, spent some time with his disciples and baptised”, and, “The […]
-
Rethinking Jesus (05) Apocalypse Now
If we’re to understand Jesus the Jew, in the context of first century Palestine, we have to give attention to the appearance of Apocalypses, from around 200 BCE to 200 CE. During that time, there were Jewish apocalypses, supposedly written by Enoch, Zephaniah, Ezra and Baruch etc. Apocalyptic writings were also included in the Dead […]
-
Rethinking Jesus (04) The Hero’s Journey
After Jesus was baptised by John , what happened next? We’re told that he took himself off into the ‘wilderness’ for the standard biblical “forty days and forty nights”, (meaning a long, but indeterminate time), during which he was both menaced by “wild beasts” and also protected by “angels”. He was also subjected, by the […]
RAY'S VIEWS ONLINE 