I understand where Operacast is coming from, he/she isn't a spiritual person but believes the validity of certain documents that account for a man called Jesus that started a "cult" that turned into the Christian faith. Ergo, Operacast believes that there was a man called Jesus but he wasn't the son of god.
Or at least, not a biological son of god in the way understood by most fundamentalists. I trust modern scholarship from the professional modern largely skeptical and entirely secular academic community more than I do the more traditional take by however many traditional believers. Modern scholarship has unearthed a few rather interesting textual patterns that were not initially expected, and when rigorous modern research results in certain unexpected answers, I trust that more than when scholars advance arguments that merely reinforce previous assumptions.
To wit: the most modern scholarship started, essentially, in the last third of the twentieth century, with an analysis of the original Koine Greek style in what appear to be the earliest textual strata as determined by the level of colloquialisms in certain texts, suggestive of an oral-transfer origin, versus a later more self-conscious literary style, suggestive of written accounts with more of an agenda behind them. As a result, the earliest textual strata appear to be the earliest Paulines (like 1 Corinthians), the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas (although not all modern scholars are agreed on this), the earliest extant Sinaiticus/Vaticanus version of Mark, the parallel sayings found in Matthew and Luke, sometimes referenced as the "Q" sayings ("Q" standing for the German "Quelle", which means "source"), and the Antiquities of Josephus.
From these, a pattern emerges related to Jesus's own sayings as seen in these earliest strata. These earliest sayings emphasize heavily the theme of social conscience (for instance, sayings like "first shall be last and the last shall be first", "give up your life in order to save it", and "love your enemies" are all found in these earliest strata). At the same time, there is no sign in these same strata of grand pronouncements like "I am the way" or [paraphrase] "He who has seen me has seen the Father", etc. Concepts like these seem to come along later.
All that was not necessarily unexpected. What was unexpected was something in addition: In the earliest apparent strata, the emphasis on social conscience is apparently twinned with an occasional emphasis on a relationship of sorts with god that does fall short of biological "son"-ship, while still, surprisingly, not totally innocent of an implied closer relationship to god than that of the ordinary human being. Clearly, this surprising textual pattern has no bearing, one way or the other, on what Jesus's actual status may have been. But it does have a bearing on what Jesus's own personal take on his status may have been! What comes from these earliest textual strata are Jesus remarks like "no man knows who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him" and "I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father has appointed unto me; that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom". This does not suggest biological son-ship, but it does suggest that Jesus in the earliest strata is already personally ready to imply a degree of "chosen"ness for himself, at the least.
This does mean, then, after all, that an assessment as to Jesus's sanity may be needed in evaluating his own apparent estimation of himself as having some kind of closeness to god above the ordinary. To do this, one probably has to evaluate both the sanity of his pronouncements on social conscience and also these stray remarks of his on "chosen"ness together as a single unit, since scholarship now suggests that they started as a single unit in their earliest textual history. Do they all, together, suggest someone more delusional than enlightened or vice versa? They evidently cannot be separated, because -- very much unlike the clearly later and clearly written-out and more literary extravagances like the Virgin Birth stories (which now appear to be extremely late, stylistically), and the equally late remarks like "I am the way", etc. -- remarks like "Love your enemies" and "no man knows who the son is" are equally part of the same early textual package. If anything came from Jesus's own words at all, these remarks are among the most likely ones to have done so.
So, is Jesus sane or insane?
If Jesus is sane, does he necessarily mean the same thing when he talks vaguely of the "Father" as we do when we talk of "god"?
Is it possible to be sane and still be merely mistaken in believing in the kind of "chosen"ness for oneself implied in these earliest somewhat nebulous remarks of his?
I don't pretend to know the answers to any of that. But I do feel that we turn our back recklessly on the most modern and rigorous analysis that's out there if we don't address these questions in this new and useful context.
Operacast
