[Vision2020] The Divinity of Christ

[Joan Opyr]

Ron writes:
  
Ms. Opyr says: “The first three gospels (and the excluded Book of Thomas) sing a rather different tune about the divinity of Jesus.”
  
Ms. Opyr, this is simply not true. While I have not read the gospel according to Thomas, I believe that Thomas himself attested to the divinity of Jesus. John 20:28 Thomas said to him [Jesus], “My Lord and my God!”
  

The text you quote, Mr. Smith, is part of John's refutation of the Gospel of Thomas.  It's in the passage that gave rise to the term “doubting Thomas” because that particular disciple, "the Twin," refused to believe that Jesus was risen from the dead until he'd seen the nail marks in Jesus' hands.  The quotation doesn't prove your point in that it's John attesting that Thomas attested to the divinity of Jesus.  It's a third-hand account; it directly contradicts the Gospel of Thomas (which you haven't read); and, at this point, I think even Lance Ito would find it inadmissible.  Moving right along . . .  
  
"As for the other gospels, Jesus is repeatedly called the Son of God."
  
As any competent Hebrew scholar can attest, Son of God was a generic term among the Hebrew people.  Throughout the Old Testament, many people are called the Son of God.  (I would call your attention especially to Ezekiel.)  All Jews are the sons and daughters of God; by our own account, the Jews are God's chosen people.  I try not to let this go to my head, but to quote the gospel of Mac Davis, "Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble."
  
Mr. Smith goes on to recite:

Matthew 26:63-64 And the high priest said to Him, "I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God." Jesus said to him, "You have said it yourself.”

Matthew 27:54 Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, "Truly this was the Son of God!"
Mark 1:1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

And etcetera, adding: "He is called other names as well which testify to his divinity – names like ‘Christ’, ‘Messiah’, and ‘Lord’.  It is better for you to simply reject the gospel that to poorly represent it."

It's very clear, Mr. Smith, that you are well-practiced in fundamentalist sword drill, but none of this alters the fact that Dale, and now you, have described me as a "professed atheist," and I have objected on the sound and logical grounds that I am not an atheist because I believe in God.  Rhetorically, I might have taken the path of pointing out that not only am I not an atheist, but Pagans are not atheists; Hindus are not atheists; Muslims are not atheists; and nor yet are the practitioners of thousands of other world religions that are beyond your experience or ken.  If you worship a god or gods, then you are not an atheist.  Period.  I believe the word you’re looking for is heathen, but I wouldn't apply that to myself either.  The God of the Jews became the God of the Christians, and though your version of Jehovah has had a facelift or two -- and has traveled down some strange and occasionally dead-end roads in the centuries since the crucifixion -- the God of Abraham is the source (or father, if you prefer) of the God that you and Dale Courtney claim to worship.
  
Now, as for your other point: I am not "poorly representing" the New Testament gospels.  I'm not representing them at all.  This is because I am not a Christian.  Before we move on, please take out the heavy hammer and whack that point into your skull.  You might do me a favor and pick a particularly thick spot, say the bit covering your frontal lobe.   
  
In your gospel quotation/interpretation, Mr. Smith, you are practicing a fundamentalist hermeneutic that I and indeed many of your fellow Christians completely and utterly reject.  The scriptures were not meant to be read as a newspaper.  The New Testament gospels contradict one another at various key points, and it is clear that they were intended as a supplement to people's personal experience of conversion, not as a Life of Christ Fact Sheet.  Consider for a moment that the vast majority of people who became Christians in the early days of the Church could not read.  Just because someone is able to construct the sentence "Jesus is God" using a collection of texts written two thousand years ago does not make it so; you must rely on your faith for your fact, Mr. Smith, but it is a rhetorical mistake of the worst kind to confuse the one for the other.  The notion that the gospels are literally true was not, as the religious scholar Karen Armstrong has ably argued, an idea that was contemporary among Jesus and his followers; it was an 18th century invention/innovation.  Biblical literalism is co-eval with the Enlightenment and the beginning of scientific and experiential observation of the known universe.  But that's another story and I haven't yet had my dinner.
  
Proverbs 17:28 Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise; When he closes his lips, he is considered prudent.

And if Grandma were a bus, we could all take a ride.   
  
Joan Opyr/Auntie EstablishmentGet more from the Web.  FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
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