Anthropomorphisms of Jesus

[mojobadshah]

So the God of the Zoroastrians is described as having human characteristics, eyes, mouth, tongue, hands, and body. The god of the Old Testament is described as having created man in his own image, but all I've been able to find as far as physical characteristics of Jesus in the New Testament are that he was fleshy. Can anyone do better?

 

[wil]

So the God of the Zoroastrians is described as having human characteristics, eyes, mouth, tongue, hands, and body. The god of the Old Testament is described as having created man in his own image, but all I've been able to find as far as physical characteristics of Jesus in the New Testament are that he was fleshy. Can anyone do better?

Too funny!

How do you anthropomorphize a human?

Now many have I guess you can call it whitened, or Anglo'd Jesus. Many paintins have him as white with brown or blond hair and with blue eyes...

They've had him with and without a beard, usually prefer the tall thin character, not often given him the stereotypical Jewish nose as found in antisemetic characatures.

But if the G!d of the Zo's is as you say, which I was unaware, you've just put one big seperation in my beliefs and yours.

As we often say that the problem with that good ol' time religion is that they make G!d in man's image.

 

[radarmark]

Wil's got it.... Jesus was human and therefore "created in H!s image". If one believes in some Zeus-like appirition (sp?), then must believe Jesus looks like him. For those of us that do not believe that, it is but one more proof we owe nothing to Zoroastrian mythology.

Pax et amore omnia vincunt!

 

[Amergin]

Too funny!

How do you anthropomorphize a human?

They do it in the same way as they anthropomorphize you, me, Prince William, Adolph Hitler, and Ghengis Khan. They all were human. It is like Equusimorphize an Arabian horse, a Morgan horse, Clydestale horse, Shetland pony, American Quarter horse, and the Mustang.

Now many have I guess you can call it whitened, or Anglo'd Jesus. Many paintins have him as white with brown or blond hair and with blue eyes...

They have a black Jesus and Virgin Mary in Ethiopia.

They've had him with and without a beard, usually prefer the tall thin character, not often given him the stereotypical Jewish nose as found in antisemetic characatures.

Since Jesus was a Palestinian in the Roman Empire. He probably had largely Arabic like genes but possibly mixed with Greeks, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Philistines. He was likely a brown skinned short stocky man probably 5 feet 3 inches tall with a Semitic nose, curly black hair, full beard and a very hairy body not the crucifix Nordic Jesus who has his chest shaved.

I think there is some connection to the anti-Semitic English Jesus movement. Hitler, a Christian Catholic, denied that Jesus was Jewish, as do Americans in Christian Identity, the KKK, and Aryan Nations. Many European Christians wanted to de-judeaize Jesus.

But if the G!d of the Zo's is as you say, which I was unaware, you've just put one big seperation in my beliefs and yours.

As we often say that the problem with that good ol' time religion is that they make G!d in man's image.

Gods were created in two ways. One was to merge the thousands of spirits that invisibly moved things into a single One God. In that way it demanded some personalization of that God. God may have been invented by ancient shamans and War Lords. Naturally their template was the personality and appearance of a Neolithic or Bronze Age war lord.

As a result, the Celtic God Dagda was a giant human who had sex with a human virgin to produce Lugh the Sun God. Each had human characteristics. Dagda even had a grandson, Cuchullain, after his son Lugh impregnated another human virgin.

Then we see this echoed in Zeus, Ahura Mazda, Brahma, Jupiter, Odin, JHWY, and the post-deification Jesus. Allah is the only one that I think is not anthropomorphised any more than having magical powers and seeks vengeance. His appearance is never described. This makes Islam the only real Monotheism that is in fact a Theism. All of the others are merely Idolatries.

The most obvious aspect of Godly anthropomorphism is the myth of a cosmic creator eternally old, impregnating a human. That implies that God is genetically more than 99.9% DNA compatible with humans, i.e. closer than Neandertal Man.

 

[arthra]

If I may ... read the above re. Zoroastrian concept of God

"God of the Zoroastrians is described as having human characteristics, eyes, mouth, tongue, hands, and body.."


and found this:

• He is One.
• He is without an origin or end.
• He has no father or mother, wife or son.
• He is without a body or form.
• Nothing resembles Him.
• Neither the eye can behold Him, nor the power of thinking can conceive him.
• He is above all that you can imagine.
• He is nearer to you than your own self.

Source:

Concept of God Zoroastrianism

Ahura Mazda is:

• Omniscient (knows everything)
• Omnipotent (all powerful)
• Omnipresent (is everywhere)
• Impossible for humans to conceive
• Unchanging
• The Creator of life
• The Source of all goodness and happiness

God is worshiped as supreme. Zoroastrians believe that everything he created is pure and should be treated with love and respect. This includes the natural environment, so Zoroastrians traditionally do not pollute the rivers, land or atmosphere. This has caused some to call Zoroastrianism 'the first ecological religion'.


BBC - Religions - Zoroastrian: God, Zoroaster and immortals

AHURA MAZDA , meaning Wise Lord or Lord of Wisdom. There is an unusual significance of this. 'Mazda' , meaning Wisdom, or Wise, is a feminine noun (like the Greek 'Sophia') but 'Ahura' , meaning literally "High Being", is masculine. Thus Zarathushtra begins to emphasize a theme that runs throughout his Gathas, that God is sexless and abstract in nature, but at the same time is very personal and shares both feminine and masculine characteristics! In the Gathas, the two names are sometimes used separately, sometimes together, but most often as Mazda Ahura (Wise Lord).

Mazda Ahura, the wise God in Mazdayasni doctrine

 

[mojobadshah]

Too funny!

How do you anthropomorphize a human?

Listen son, all I was asking is if anyone could point out any excerpts from the New Testament that describe Jesus's physical attributes.

If I may ... read the above re. Zoroastrian concept of God

"God of the Zoroastrians is described as having human characteristics, eyes, mouth, tongue, hands, and body.."


and found this:

• He is One.
• He is without an origin or end.
• He has no father or mother, wife or son.
• He is without a body or form.
• Nothing resembles Him.
• Neither the eye can behold Him, nor the power of thinking can conceive him.
• He is above all that you can imagine.
• He is nearer to you than your own self.

Source:

Concept of God Zoroastrianism

Ahura Mazda is:

• Omniscient (knows everything)
• Omnipotent (all powerful)
• Omnipresent (is everywhere)
• Impossible for humans to conceive
• Unchanging
• The Creator of life
• The Source of all goodness and happiness

I'm just quoting the Gathas. I understand that according to tradition these references are viewed as symbolic attributes, but my point is that even in the Gathas there was a slight leaning towards anthropomorphism, which became more apparent in later Zoroastrian times as in the carving of Ormazd aka Ahura Mazda in the Naqsh-i-Rustam inscriptions. Ultimately my point is that Jesus wasn't the first "one God" to have been described with human features. As far as Yahweh and Genesis, Yahweh didn't become a "one God" until Deutero-Isaiah when the Jews had come into contact with the Zoroastrians.

But where do the Gathas say that Ahura Mazda is "without origin or end" "without mother, father, or son," or "omnipresent" or does that come later?

 

[arthra]

If you're going make statements about a religion, i.e.,

God of the Zoroastrians is described as having human characteristics, eyes, mouth, tongue, hands, and body.."

it's always good to cite your sources..Give an example from the texts of the religion.

One of sites I noted above has:

Throughout the Gathas many aspects, attributes and qualities of this God of Wisdom, Ahura Mazda, are enumerated, which can briefly be summarized as follows:

He is a God of Free Choice. (Songs 3:2, 4:9 and 11)
He is Creator of All. (Song 9:7)
He promotes the unconquerable dominion. (Song 1:3)
He is a God who knows best (Song 2:4 & 5:7), and is the ´Knowing´ and who fashions righteousness to look after the promoter and the settler (Song 2:6).
He is of one accord with righteousness, who prepared the ´Thought Provoking Message´ (the Manthra), the promoter for those who wish to be protected (Song 2:7)
He has established "…long suffering for the wrongful, and a lasting good for the righteous…" (Song3:11)
He grants happiness to all and speaks words of knowledge to Zarathushtra, to guide all to choose right (Song 4:3).
He increases dominion through good mind (Song 4:6), stimulates the mind (Song 4:7); He is the first and the last, the patron of good mind and the Lord of life's actions (Song 4:8); He has fashioned intellect for us and put life in the physical frame (Song 4:11); and reveals good mind (Song 4:17).
He watches all (4:13)
He grants wholeness, immortality, abundance of righteousness, to those who are his friends in mind and action (Song 4:21; Song 6:9)
He is an ally and a friend and has chosen progressive serenity for us (Song 5:2)
He comes through righteousness and good mind (Song 6:7)

http://www.zoroastrianism.cc/god_in_the_gathas.html

Considering the influence Zoroastrianism or Mazda Yasnian religion has had it's pretty important to know about it.

 

[mojobadshah]

If you're going make statements about a religion, i.e.,

God of the Zoroastrians is described as having human characteristics, eyes, mouth, tongue, hands, and body.."

it's always good to cite your sources..Give an example from the texts of the religion.

Then I will do just that:

God of the Zoroastrians is described as having human characteristics, eyes (Yasna 31.13), mouth (Yasna 31:30), tongue (Yasna 31:30), hands (Yasna 43:4), and body (Yasna 1:1).

But where do the Gathas say that Ahura Mazda is "without origin or end" "without mother, father, or son," or "omnipresent" or does that come later?

 

[arthra]

Then I will do just that:

God of the Zoroastrians is described as having human characteristics, eyes (Yasna 31.13), mouth (Yasna 31:30), tongue (Yasna 31:30), hands (Yasna 43:4), and body (Yasna 1:1).

But where do the Gathas say that Ahura Mazda is "without origin or end" "without mother, father, or son," or "omnipresent" or does that come later?

while I was able to locate a few references to "body" and "hand" I am not convinced one can then easily conclude as you do that 'God of the Zoroastrians is descibed as having human characteristics'...

So a few of the verses you refer to are found at

The Zend Avesta (Part 3 The Yasna, Visperad and Fragments) by L. H. Mills

but the verses 30:31 are not in that translation.

The Gathas can be found at

The Gathas ("Hymns") of Zarathushtra

Entire text of Gathas in HTML format (AZ)

The reference to God as without beginning or end in the article i cited above is from the Desatir

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasatir-i-Asmani

 

[Thomas]

Why not try looking beyond the surface, the superficial and, to coin a Brit phrase, 'the bleedin' obvious'?

Perhaps a contemplation of the term 'image' might prove fruitful?

Or perhaps a contemplation of what the sacred scribe is trying to convey, rather than get fixated on what colour hair or height or whatever?

And perhaps there is no physical description of Jesus in the New Testament, because that's really not the point ...

God bless,

Thomas

 

[seattlegal]

Oh gee whiz! Jesus was human. "Son of Man" is often translated as "the Human One."

As for anthropomorphizing, in Hebrew, sea shore means "lip of the sea." Is that anthropomorphizing the sea?

 

[arthra]

Oh gee whiz! Jesus was human. "Son of Man" is often translated as "the Human One."

As for anthropomorphizing, in Hebrew, sea shore means "lip of the sea." Is that anthropomorphizing the sea?

Thanks for sharing that piece about the "lip of the sea"! I didn't know that. I think that's a rather beautiful turn of phrase..

Since we do use language shaped by our culture it's probably unavoidable that an "anthropomorphism" of some kind will slip in...us being anthropoids of a sort..

 

[Amergin]

If we put aside Bronze Age superstition, mythology, and bloody weird bollocks, the Jesus of the Gospels if he indeed was a real life person, was clearly human.

When he walked into a public square, his appearance did not make people scream, run away, faint, or shout "monster." People did not react because he must have had a head with face, two eyes, a nose, mouth, human voice, Ears, neck, spine, two arms, two legs, two hands, two feet. He did not scare anybody. Fortunately he did not expose his dick and flop it around. People would have fled or stoned him. He was a middle eastern human.

There is no evidence that he was ever a god. He never claimed to be God. The Evangelists did not claim him to be God. Roman Pagans made him a god in the same way that they made Julius Caesar, Octavian-Augustus, and Caligula into gods. It was a Roman custom. Uneducated, weak rationality of common people led to them taking the ceremonial deification seriously.

 

[Amergin]

Jehovah/JHWY/Allah are not anthropomorphised in the sense of physical appearance. He is not supposed to be visible, material, or energy.

Anthropomorphism applies only to JHWY. Not physical description but psychiatric. Like Bronze Age and late Neolithic Age humans lived in groups with a powerful leader. A leader had to be strong and ruthless to hold the clan together. He was the War Lord and/or Shaman.

His classical psychological profile.
out of control narcissism,
jealousy,
vindictiveness,
cruelty,
violence,
inciting people to violence,
murder,
genocide,
permitting rape,
infanticide,
slavery,
insecurity (needing constant worship like an Oriental potentate,)
indecisiveness,
regret,
Lack of Conscience.

 

[arthra]

Amergin,

Were you his psychiatrist?

 

[Thomas]

If we put aside Bronze Age superstition, mythology, and bloody weird bollocks, the Jesus of the Gospels if he indeed was a real life person, was clearly human.

Funnily enough, Christians have thought that all along, without recourse to your 'bloody weird bollocks' (I assume you mean stuff beyond your comprehension) or anything else.

When he walked into a public square, his appearance did not make people scream, run away, faint, or shout "monster."

But it did make them turn out in large numbers to see Him, even just to touch Him.

He did not scare anybody.

He scared the Sanhedrin.

Fortunately he did not expose his dick and flop it around.

Is anybody supposed to treat your posts as a credible argument? Read it back to yourself ... would you give you the time of day?

People would have fled or stoned him.

They tried to, more than once.

There is no evidence that he was ever a god.

There is no evidence, from the above, that you've ever read Scripture or, if you have, that you've actually understood a word of it.

He never claimed to be God.

Yes He did.

The Evangelists did not claim him to be God.

Yes they did.

Roman Pagans made him a god in the same way that they made Julius Caesar, Octavian-Augustus, and Caligula into gods.

No they didn't. Nor does the Hebraic and Christian understanding of God relate in any way to the Roman understanding of the term, this is a crass and ignorant argument.

Try running the above passed a secular historian or sociologist and he or she will laugh.

God bless,

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

Like Bronze Age and late Neolithic Age humans lived in groups with a powerful leader. A leader had to be strong and ruthless to hold the clan together. He was the War Lord and/or Shaman.

It may come as some surprise to you that Jewish, Christian and Moslem thought about the nature of God has moved beyond the Neolithic.

What always makes me smile is that critics of Scripture such as yourself rely on Neolithic concepts which they then seek to ridicule ... it's like me rubbishing science on the basis that man once believed the sun was a chariot racing across the sky.

God bless,

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

According to orthodox Christian doctrine, Jesus Christ is 'true God and true man', that is, the Divine Projection, and Self-Manifestation, in the physical world.

The Incarnation is achieved through the union of the Divine with the human, so what makes Jesus 'different' or 'divine' is nothing to do with His humanity per se ... so what colour His eyes were, or how long His hair, is immaterial.

Of course, there are sentimentalisms, and metaphysical nonsenses, in history. I was told, as a kid, that Jesus, being perfect, was the only man who was exactly six foot tall (I know, I know!) ...

What is far more significant, of course, is that prior the the Rewsurrection, Jesus was subject to His physicality ... after it, the proper relation was observed, in which His physicality is subject to his own will.

God bless,

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

Something that everyone seems to miss is that according to the Abrahamic Tradition, it is God's will that God be known to His creation.

God, being God, and thus beyond knowing, therefore necessarily comes to man to make Himself known, and the greatest compliment and dignity the Deity can afford is to come to man, as man.

That is, dialogue with the person as a person ... as the archetype, as the source, as the cause, and so on.

Again, in the Abrahamic Tradition, the will of God is that the created may participate in the life of the Creator, which we call divine union and has been expressed throughout Scripture in the most intimate of terms — culminating in the Pauline metaphors of nuptial union, filial sonship, and so on — so it is quite understandable that God should talk to man, as it were, person to person.

Of course, God could manifest as a chair-leg, or a star, or a cosmos ... but these are no more God than God as an anthropomorphic model, and they would actually tell us less about the interiority of the Godhead.

As the Psalmist cried:
What is man that thou art mindful of him?
(8:5)

God bless,

Thomas.

 

[bob x]

As a result, the Celtic God Dagda was a giant human who had sex with a human virgin to produce Lugh the Sun God. Each had human characteristics. Dagda even had a grandson, Cuchullain, after his son Lugh impregnated another human virgin.

Lug's father was not Dagda, and his mother was not a virgin. Cuchullain's father was not Lug, and his mother was not a virgin either. If you are going to pretend to adhere to some kind of Celtic beliefs, stop echoing things that were only invented in the 20th century.

Then we see this echoed in Zeus, Ahura Mazda, Brahma, Jupiter, Odin, JHWY, and the post-deification Jesus.

And I wish you could learn to spell "YHWH": the Name is only four letters long, not really that difficult. And you ought to know that "Zeus" (also called "Zeopater") and "Jupiter" (also called "Jovis" where the "v" was pronounced as a "w") are the same deity; whereas the others that you name have totally different stories.