Was Jesus a gracious, gentle and humble as Christians like to claim or was he intolerant, self-important and frequently wrong? What do the gospels say?
He’s intolerant and self-important when:
He insists people should love him more than their own families (Matthew 10:37).
He says he’s not a peacemaker but intends creating strife (Luke 12:51).
He claims anyone who doesn’t follow him deserves to be burnt (John 15:6).
He wants the world to be destroyed by fire (Luke 12:49).
He commands people not to call others ‘fools’ (Matthew 5.22) but tells those he doesn’t care for that they’re ‘swine’, ‘dogs’, ‘snakes and vipers’, ‘whitewashed tombs’, and, yes, ‘fools’ (Matthew 7:6; 15:26; 23:33; 23:27; 23:17 & Luke 11:40).
He deliberately speaks in riddles so that people won’t understand him and won’t find forgiveness (Mark 4:12).
He tells his followers to love their enemies but says he’d have his own killed (Luke 19:27 & Matthew 13:41-42).
He endorses slavery and the cruel treatment of slaves (Luke 12:47-48).
He says people would be better off if they cut off their hands, plucked out their eyes and castrated themselves (Mark 9:43-48 & Matthew 19:12).
He endorses the Jewish law that demands the death penalty for those who disrespect their mother and father (Matthew 15:4-7).
He disrespects his mother (Matthew 12:48-49).
He tells people not to get angry but loses his own temper (Matthew 5:22 &Mark 3:5).
He callously kills a herd of pigs and, in a fit of pique, destroys a fig tree (Matthew 8:32 & Matthew 21:19).
He takes a whip to people (John 2:15).
He tells his mates he’ll soon be king of the world and promises them that they’ll rule alongside him (Matthew 19:28).
Are these the marks of a tolerant, compassionate man? Or the characteristics of an unpleasant, delusional megalomaniac?
As for frequently wrong: first, the false promises –
I will do <em>whatever</em> you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son (John 14:13).
Very truly, I tell you, if you ask <em>anything</em> of the Father in my name, he will give it to you (John 16:23).
These signs will accompany those who believe: …they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover’ (Mark 16:17).
Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” But strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matthew 6:25-7.1).
and then there’s the failed prophecies –
For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels… I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom (Matthew 16:27-28). Just in case we don’t get this the first time, he tells us again in Matthew 24:27, 30-31, 34 and in Luke 21:27-28, 33-34.
Did he return with the angelic host and establish God’s kingdom on Earth before his disciples died? He did not.
Christian zealots unable to accept the evidence of the gospels themselves will no doubt have a hundred and one clichéd, implausible excuses for Jesus’ many failures: ‘he was speaking metaphorically’; ‘you lack the spiritual insight to see what he really meant’; ‘you’re quoting him out of context’, blah blah, blah.
All I ask is that they please, please don’t inflict these excuses on us here when we’ve heard them all so many times before.
rejectingjesus, 
If Jesus was perfect than so are we. The difference is divine sonship but then again so are we. We’re all that there is evolved of stardust.
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“…and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden”
With apologies to Joni Mitchell
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” For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God.”
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“For he whom JK has sent speaks the words of JK.”
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Don: sez” For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God.”
Then I’m sure you’ve been glued to the screen this weekend as the Mormon prophets and apostles address the world in their semi-annual conference.
They are, after all, YahwehJesusGhost’s only Authorized Spokesmen™ in the whole world. We can know that they’re YahwehJesusGhost’s only Authorized Spokesmen™ in the whole world because they never shut up about it. Of course, they’re not as arrogantly self-aggrandizing as Paul was. But they are a close second. (This similarity to the great apostle is obviously a sign they are the real deal.)
If you want to get hours and hours of bona fide messages from YahwehJesusGhost to this generation, check out the one true website of his one true church with the only Authorized Spokesmen™ in the whole world: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/?lang=eng
If only someone could give us an objective, reliable, repeatable, falsifiable method for testing god/supernatural claims. Until then, I’m left assuming they’re all bullshit.
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You might ask for that. God answered Gideon in areliable, repeatable, falsifiable, objective way. Why not you, right?
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A fictional God answered a fictional character.
Yes, that works.
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Judges: 6-8
Gideon requested proof of God’s will by three miracles: firstly a sign from the angel, in which the angel appeared to Gideon and caused fire to shoot up out of a rock, and then two signs involving a fleece, performed on consecutive nights and the exact opposite of each other. First Gideon woke up to his fleece covered in dew, but the surrounding ground dry; then the next morning, his fleece was dry but the surrounding ground covered in dew.
Don:
You might ask for that. God answered Gideon in a reliable, repeatable, falsifiable, objective way. Why not you, right?
No, he didn’t!
I tried this last night…guess what?
It doesn’t work!
This is not what we mean by “evidence”
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Me neither. My sheepskin rug is ruined.
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See my reply to goyo. Not everyone needs evidence that meets all the qualifications goyo lists. For many Jesus will do. He did for John. He did for many.
In a court of law, the testimony of an eyewitness is evidence. That is what you have in 1st John 1:1-2
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Spent a lot of time on it, no doubt.
I should have added tactile to the list of qualifications. I like that one, don’t you?
Not everyone receives the same kinds of evidence, or needs it. For many Jesus himself is sufficient evidence. The evidence John mentions:
That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we saw, and our hands touched, concerning the Word of life 2 (and the life was revealed, and we have seen, and testify, and declare to you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was revealed to us); (1st John 1:1-2)
That covers your qualifications, including the tactile. It was objective, repeatable, falsifiable, even tactile. And as far as the testimony of John is concerned, it is reliable. Like a witness in court whose testimony is examined and found reliable, I will take that.
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Bart Ehrman: ‘Critical scholars today almost entirely think that the author (of 1 John) was not the *same* person as the author of the Gospel, and was almost certainly not John the Son of Zebedee. he probably was, though, an author living in the same community, at a later time, with a similar point of view.’
Despite what he claims, he was unlikely to have been an eye-witness who heard, saw and fondled Jesus.
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I would differ. Critical notwithstanding. The grammar and syntax along with similar motifs in the Gospel all point to a single author.
When I was getting ready for seminary and refreshing my Greek in preparation of more advanced classes, I read through 1st John with a good Greek reader. Why 1st John? Because it is written in very simple Greek. The vocabulary is limited and simple. The grammar is simple. The sentences are short. There are no sophisticated constructions such as found in Luke or Paul.
As I went on to read the Gospel of John those same characteristics are what I encountered in John’s personal part of the narrative. In addition the motifs of “light” and “darkness” and “word” and others are shared the same in the epistle and the Gospel.
So, the first two verses are not surprising. They are exactly what a person who knew Jesus personally and had spent may days with him would write. (Notice that the author does not identify himself in any other way. Yet he speaks to readers who knew him with authority that his readers understood. This intro is a reminder to them that he was there and knew Jesus.) And that intro would be a lie if written by anyone who had not known Jesus as John did. And as a lie it would be in stark contrast to his very next statement about the critical importance of the truth. (Another motif) Why include it if it raised a red flag as it would have for the readers who knew the author if the author had not known Jesus personally?
I do not have any question that the author of the epistle and the Gospel is the same. What are the reasons your esteemed counselors believe otherwise?
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I, I, I. You know better than the scholarly consensus. Of course you do.
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Neil, there is no scholarly consensus.
Here is the Wiki opinion: “there is no consensus if this was also the author of the Gospel of John.” (Wiki “First Epistle of John”
An unofficial observation: “John and 1 John share a vocabulary of words and thought forms to such an extent that no one has mounted a serious proposal that they are independent works.” https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/13503/were-1-john-and-john-s-gospel-written-by-the-same-person
If you read down in the above article, you’ll find as good a summary of the pros and cons the same author or not as any summary can do.
I, like the author of the article, find the reasons for seeing the same pen more compelling. And the most compelling is the eyewitness account in 1st John. We from a distance of 2000 years have to mine the texts and compare the theologies to come to a conclusion of authorship. The first readers did not. They knew the author. See Richard Bauckham, ed. The Gospels for all Christians, “Ancient Book Production and the Circulation of the Gospels” by Loveday Alexander.
These letters were not anonymously left on a park bench for anyone to pick up. They were sent by the author through couriers who would have introduced the letter personally to the churches. So, knowing the author, the eyewitness remarks in the first chapter would have been accepted as accurate or would have been a huge red flag. Since the letter is regarded as genuine by the early church, the former is most likely.
But in any event, I am still waiting for a reasoned argument for separate authorship. Absent that, you are talking through your hat. There is no consensus.
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You do realise the Wiki article you quote supports my position not yours? It’s saying there is no consensus John the Evangelist wrote the Johannine epistles! There is consensus, according to the same Wiki article, that he did not.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Epistle_of_John
Scholarly consensus has it that the epistles were written between AD 95 and 110. John the disciple would have been long dead. Assuming he was in his 20s in AD 30, he would be 85 or older by the earliest of the compositional dates, 100+ by the later. Life expectancy was 35-40. https://earlychurchhistory.org/daily-life/longevity-in-the-ancient-world/
You arrogantly demand this evidence when it is readily available online. You arrogantly suppose I’m obliged to supply you with the research behind scholarly consensus when if you’ve read what you claim to have read you’re already aware of it. At the same time, you arrogantly assure us that your own thinking trumps any objective evidence and research and arrogantly dump third-rate preaching on my site, replete with chunks of Bible verses and presumptuous links to your own blog. As I’ve told you before I will not post such ‘comments’.
It is a waste of time arguing with you, Don. You’re locked into your delusion and refuse to consider any possibilities, evidence or reasoning that might cause you to look critically at your entrenched views.
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There is something you can do, however. You can search using a concordance for words. So, take some of the key words in 1st John. Use the concordance in Biblegateway.com Or Strong’s if you like.
If you search for the word “truth” you will find 21 verses in the Gospel of John, 8 verses in 1st John, 4 in 2nd John, and 5 in 3rd John. It is used only once in each of the other three Gospels. That should be a clue that the author of the epistles and the Gospel is one and the same. It does not seal the deal, but it is a beginning.
If you do that with other key words, you will find the same. Try “word.” Try “life.” Put those themes together and you have a case for a single author of the two books.
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Some buzz words, important to the early cult, appear in several of the books later chosen for the New Testament – and you think this is evidence that two of those books must have had the same author?
‘Truth’ and ‘Life’ appear in Paul and pseudo-Paul. Does that mean Paul or one of his imitators also wrote John’s gospel and the Johannine letters? Of course not.
Furthermore, even if John’s gospel and letters were demonstrably by the same author it wouldn’t mean they were reliable or authoritative. John’s gospel’s Jesus, as we’ve discussed before, is radically different from the Jesus of the synoptics; he is evolving into the egotistical Superman that Mark would not have recognised.
How’s that for thinking for myself? Of course you’ll dismiss this because I don’t refer to any scholars… even though when I do, you tell me I’m not thinking for myself.
Thinking for yourself, despite what you do, Don, is not starting from a predetermined conclusion and working backwards trying to find evidence you think supports that conclusion.
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Youm know you are rejecting the work of source critics – who are likely the very anonymous group you declare are in “consensus” about the authorship of 1st John.
I think you are picking and choosing for your own reasons without any solid factual reason for doing so and without knowledge of the details that contribute to consensus you refer to so often.
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You see, I can’t win with you.
If I refer to the consensus you tell me I’m not thinking for myself.
If I don’t reference it, you claim I’m rejecting it (when in fact it’s you who dismisses it, every time it contradicts your own idiosyncratic interpretations.)
If I don’t reiterate every detail of how a consensus has been arrived at you accuse me of cherry-picking. (Pans and kettles come to mind.)
In fact, I don’t care who wrote 1 John or indeed any of your magic book. As I’ve explained to you several times already, I reject all of it because it. isn’t. true. Its authorship is immaterial.
You’re impossible to debate with, Don. All you want to hear are your own twaddlesome views parrotted back at you. You’ve already been banned from innumerable atheist sites and I think it’s time you were from this one.
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Don sez: Youm know you are rejecting the work of source critics – who are likely the very anonymous group you declare are in “consensus” about the authorship of 1st John.
I think you are picking and choosing for your own reasons without any solid factual reason for doing so and without knowledge of the details that contribute to consensus you refer to so often.
Strangely, Don, the consensus is everywhere. If you read broadly in the scholarship, it’s unavoidable.
Today, the gospels are often referred to as gMark, gMatthew, gLuke and gJohn and their authors as aMark, aMatthew, aLuke and aJohn specifically to reference the works and the authors without implying the name of the author.
Some scholars simply refer to “the author” in their work about the gospels. If you’ve paid any attention to William Lane Craig, he consistently refers to “the author of Mark” and “the author of Matthew”, etc. without ever explicitly stating that Mark and Matthew are not the authors of these works. He’s expertly treading the line between honest scholarship and his fans who think the names are real.
It’s actually very rare to come across a biblical scholar who thinks the traditional authorship holds today.
But, so I’m not citing anonymous scholars, here’s some excerpts from The New Oxford Annotated Bible. I’ve edited down the intros to each book considerably, trying to give just the conclusion they’ve reached concerning authorship. I’m sure you can find a copy of this commentary at your local library or bookstore.
All of this leads me to wonder, Don, why you are here preaching at a bunch of atheists? Wouldn’t your time be better spent schooling the biblical scholars who’ve gotten it all wrong? You at least have a common ground with them.
––––––––––––––––––––
THE NEW OXFORD ANNOTATED BIBLE
Fully Revised Fifth Edition (2018)
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN
authorship, provenance, and date of composition
Today most scholars think that Johannine traditions stem from an unidentified follower of Jesus, not one of the twelve disciples. This anonymous disciple developed a group of followers, a “Johannine school,” who were responsible for writing down his witness. This figure was idealized in the community, as the model believer who is called the “beloved disciple” in the Gospel narrative (19.25–27).
THE FIRST LETTER OF JOHN
canonical status and authorship
The opening verses of 1 John employ a first-person plural “we” as witnesses to the truth revealed in Jesus (1 Jn 1.1–4). That “we” probably refers to a circle of teachers faithful to the apostolic testimony of the Beloved Disciple and the evangelist. A prominent member of that group composed this instruction as well as the letters 2 and 3 John.
THE SECOND LETTER OF JOHN
name, canonical status, and authorship
Some second-century Christians identified the “elder” (v. 1) with John the son of Zebedee, who was thought to be the author of both the Gospel and first letter of John (cf. Peter as “fellow elder” in 1 Pet 5.1). However, Papias distinguished between the evangelist John and the “elder” who wrote the Johannine letters. Most contemporary scholars accept this view. Some question the common authorship of all three Johannine letters.
THE THIRD LETTER OF JOHN
name, canonical status, and authorship
In antiquity all the Johannine letters were attributed to John the son of Zebedee, as was the Gospel. Modern scholars distinguish the author of 1–3 John from the evangelist.
THE REVELATION TO JOHN
authorship
He mentions the twelve apostles as figures from the past (21.14), and does not refer to himself as one of them. This makes an identification of the John of the book of Revelation with the apostle of that name highly questionable, as is any connection of the John of the Revelation with the Gospel according to John or with the Letters of John.
––––––––––––––––––––
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Hmmm … have YOU, Don, actually heard, seen, or touched your idol? Or perhaps it’s more that you’ve read about those that (supposedly) did?
Oh wait! I know! You’ve “sensed” it all so surely that’s enough, right?
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I have not seen or touched or heard Jesus in the flesh. But I like a jury hearing the testimony of an eyewitness do trust what these eyewitnesses have said about him. And I have spent years examining their testimony and have found it convincing.
In particular I think the Gospel of Mark is the eyewitness testimony of Peter with the final several chapters the eyewitness testimony of Mark. I think that 1st John and the Gospel of John are the writings of an eyewitness to Jesus. (Think how incongruent the first two verses of 1st John would be in view of the verses following. Don’t you think the first readers would have seen the conflict between them knowing the author themselves?)
Why do you not think so? Please be specific, no bowing to your esteemed counselors, now. Think as a juror who must determine if the testimony of the witness before her is credible or not. MAKE UP YOUR OWEN MIND.
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I think … you think … Neil thinks … goyo thinks … Ark thinks … let”s spin the wheel and see who wins the thinking contest!
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To piggyback on what Koseighty said about the Mormons…
From mormonr.org:
Did anybody besides Joseph Smith see the golden plates?
Yes. The historical record includes over twenty people who testified that they saw and/or handled the gold plates.
Who were the “official” Book of Mormon witnesses?
Eleven men served as “official” witnesses of the Book of Mormon. Three of them—Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris—were specifically called by revelation to bear testimony of their experience seeing and handling the golden plates.
Were the witnesses ever persecuted for their testimony?
Yes. Several first and secondhand accounts confirm that some of the witnesses, including David Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery, Hiram Page, and Christian Whitmer, suffered mob violence.[6] Oliver Cowdery also reportedly suffered professional reputational damage for his testimony.
Did the witnesses have reputations for being honest?
Yes. According to accounts from both skeptics and believers, the witnesses were reported to be honest and sincere.
Don:
“That covers your qualifications, including the tactile. It was objective, repeatable, falsifiable, even tactile. And as far as the testimony of John is concerned, it is reliable. Like a witness in court whose testimony is examined and found reliable, I will take that.”
The Mormon witnesses even handled the golden plates…there’s your “tactile”!
So, Don, based on your criteria, the Mormons have the correct gospel!
How about that!
The Book of Mormon is true!
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What they saw, even if they saw it, does not make the gospel of Joseph Smith correct. It simply establishes that they saw a book.
The other claims Smith and Young made are of greater importance than the book. Do they agree with what Jesus said? Do they agree with the testimony of the eyewitnesses to Jesus? I would think that Jesus would have the final word.
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He’s welcome to make a comment any time. He can even have the final word.
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Years ago I told Don to ask Jesus to come by my place for dinner anytime. We’d eat. We’d talk. But nothing. Not for Sunday roast. Not for taco night. Not for steaks on the grill. No Jesus ever.
Maybe Don forgot to pass the invite along. Maybe Jesus doesn’t take Don’s calls. Maybe he just doesn’t exist. Who can say?
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Here’s some more testimony Don:
From Bud Hopkins UFO investigator:
HOPKINS: The best case that I had ever worked with, and it’s extraordinarily important, and it’s the subject of the book that I’m working on right now. It involves a woman who was abducted. She was abducted from a 12th floor apartment in Manhattan. Floated out the window. And in this case, the UFO occupants wanted this to be seen, for various complicated reasons.
So therefore, it was not masked or hidden or whatnot. Even though it was three in the morning. This woman was witnessed floating with the three aliens—below the UFO, 12 stories up—by a number of different people, who I have heard from.
According to Don:
“In a court of law, the testimony of an eyewitness is evidence. That is what you have in 1st John 1:1-2”
There you have it…alien abductions are real!
This is fun!
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Oh Yes, goyo!!! 👏👏👏❤
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I suspect you are waiting eagerly for goyo’s book.
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Maybe alien abductions are real. Maybe nothing is real. I can see why you have trouble, not only with the subject at hand but with aliens and Smith’s story and with virtually everything. You must be a fun guy to be around.
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@Don
Out of interest, do you consider the gospels of Matthew and Luke to be authored by the individuals whose names are attributed to them?
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Yes. I wrote a book a few years ago on Matthew and the research I did persuaded me that Matthew was the tax collector Levi and a Levite by birth and training. He was fluent and literate in several languages and quite biblically literate knowing the style of teaching used by the rabbis. All that shows up in his Gospel. He was disenchanted, however, with the Jews’ religion and left to earn a living as a tax collector. When Jesus came along Matthew saw in him everything he believed the Jewish faith should be, and he followed Jesus.
Luke in my judgement was a Gentile who became convinced by Paul’s preaching and turned to Jesus as Savior and Lord. He became a companion and fellow worker with Paul in Asia and probably stayed in Philippi when Paul left because that is where the “we” passages begin as he joined Paul in his last journey to Judea and then to Rome.
While in Judea as Paul was waiting for trial and for about two years, he had the opportunity to do the research that is evident in his Gospel. Because he derived that information from a number of sources, the Gospel has the feel of a series of vignettes rather than a tightly organized narrative. During that time, he gathered information from all the Apostles who were still in Jerusalem including probably Peter, James and John. That is why his Gospel sounds like Peter’s Gospel as Mark recorded it just a few years later. Because he was close to Paul and the Apostles in Jerusalem he was able to collect the information he included in Acts about things he did not experience himself.
He was well educated and able to write pretty sophisticated Greek. He was a wonderful observer, and that shows up in his writing as well. He was compassionate and had a great tenderness toward the sick and marginalized and women. And that shows up in his Gospel. No one else of all the people we read about in the early first century Christian community matched the author of Luke and Acts as Luke did.
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Unless the individual who wrote the “research” you consulted was an actual friend of Matthew and/or Luke, then his (and yours) conclusions carry no weight and are based on nothing more than personal assumptions about stories written over 2,000 years ago. (But imagining can be such fun, can’t it?)
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Don:
“Maybe alien abductions are real. Maybe nothing is real. I can see why you have trouble, not only with the subject at hand but with aliens and Smith’s story and with virtually everything. You must be a fun guy to be around.”
The subject at hand is “eyewitness accounts”. That’s what this comment thread is about, you wannabe apologist.
You keep harping about “eyewitness accounts” from the bible being so accurate, (from 2000 years ago), and I’m providing examples of modern eyewitness accounts of events that you don’t accept.
Here’s what you said just yesterday:
“I, like the author of the article, find the reasons for seeing the same pen more compelling. And the most compelling is the eyewitness account in 1st John. We from a distance of 2000 years have to mine the texts and compare the theologies to come to a conclusion of authorship.”
That’s you, saying that!
And I’m saying there’s plenty of eyewitness accounts of lots of contradictory bullshit.
Are you really that dense?
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Does that mean all are unreliable?
Take the whole evidence available into consideration. That is the time tested process of the judicial process. It is the process that Bible scholars use as they consider the claims made in the Bible. For 1st John, the claim that the author saw, touched and heard Jesus is supported by the whole network of testimony and evidence in the New Testament.
I know that is a big claim, but it is true. That network includes other testimony, the common themes and motifs, the vocabulary common to an author, the similar grammatical and syntax styles, the unity of the theology, the history that is interlocking with the history that is the background of other books, but here in particular, the Gospel of John. It is also networked with the history we have form other sources. And then there is common sense. In this case, common sense tells us that the author of 1st John could not get away with saying what he said to people who knew him if it were not true.
When you isolate one clue from the others, or the testimony of one person from the others, it may appear shaky. But when all the rest of the evidence is added, it appears sound.
I wonder about your investigation of the UFO incident. How is the evidence stacking up?
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Don:
“I suspect you are waiting eagerly for goyo’s book.”
Awww, you’re jealous! That’s cute!
Remember, jealousy and envy are sins!
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Don:
“I wonder about your investigation of the UFO incident. How is the evidence stacking up?”
Take the whole evidence available into consideration. That is the time tested process of the UFO Investigation process. It is the process that UFO scholars use as they consider the claims made by the various sightees.
For the UFO incident above , the claim that the author saw, touched and heard aliens is supported by the whole network of testimony and evidence in the various claims about aliens.
I know that is a big claim, but it is true. That network includes other testimony, the common themes and motifs, the vocabulary common to alien abductions , the similar grammatical and syntax styles, the unity of the testimony, the history that is interlocking with the history that is the background of other sightings, but here in particular, the sighting of Budd Hopkins. It is also networked with the history we have form other sources. And then there is common sense. In this case, common sense tells us that the author of one sighting could not get away with saying what he said to people who knew him if it were not true.
When you isolate one clue from the others, or the testimony of one person from the others, it may appear shaky. But when all the rest of the evidence is added, it appears sound.
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Much like politics, believers manipulate and shape the scriptures into the meaning and results that support their particular perspective.
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