3 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

No, people first knew about him from his presence and the spoken words that he gave his first followers. Then people knew about him from the spoken words and presence of these followers. Today we can know about him by his spiritual presence in our lives, and the few words that are spoken about him that tell us where and when he walked this earth.

I was talking about we as in us, present day people and those well after the first few centuries. 

I do agree that his disciples and a larger group of followers, including the women often mentioned. experienced Jesus in their present and in/through his words and actions. After his death and in light of their 'resurrection experience' they turned to their Jewish scriptures to better understand and explain Jesus. Thereafter, their preaching and the telling of stories about Jesus did include their memories of his words (actions, etc.) to them, the disciples, and this was the gospel or good news, presented orally which was repeated to others as they went out to the wider Jewish communities in the Diaspora and to the Gentiles - words, actions, stories of Jesus that were eventually reflected in the written gospels.  

3 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

The few words, "Jesus is (the) Christ", though they are written down and canonized with a lot of other stuff, can just as well be passed down orally and verbally. That's the way it was in the beginning. Is there any reason why it shouldn't still matter and pertain down to and into this present day?

In the beginning of the community's life, those words (and more) were the gospel or good news of Jesus the Christ that they were presented orally - and the gospels in the later 1st C were that same gospel presented in writing.

They were passed down orally and then the same word was passed on in written form. The few words, 'Jesus is the Christ' were not sufficient in the beginning and the disciples were there to cite their scriptures, tell of this man, Jesus, with whom they lived and encourage others with their words. Now with the disciples gone, the written gospels fulfill this same mission and need. The Christian communities believe it is the 'same word.' If you do not, please explain why it is not.

3 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

I thought we were talking about whether Jesus was an apocalyptic Jew or not.

If you, and these scholars believe that Jesus was an apocalyptic Jew, because Paul and other Jews were apocalyptic in their thinking,... I don't see how one statement necessarily leads to and concludes the other.

We were and the critical scholars who agree with this position and your comments about them.

It's not one statement as these scholar have presented numerous apocalyptic comments and references. Allison, alone, in a book previously referenced, cites at least 30 texts and many of these are found in multiple gospels, so the number is beyond 50. 

3 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

On their own simple and inspired faith and the inspired faith of others being passed along orally and  spiritually through time and through the ages.

Again, what people? Examples??

Everything that was passed along orally by the early community was presented with reference to Jewish scriptures and/or made up part of the oral traditions that became part of the NT.

No Republican platform, just trumpism. So much for the GOP, now it is just a cult dominated by the trumpster's family. OMG!!

13 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

I just found this on this subject:

Jewish Sects of the 1st Century (1)

Harvard’s renowned late scholar Jacob Neusner wrote in Judaism When Christianity Began, p.5, 50: “Judaism divides into Judaisms….Judaisms that flourished in Second Temple times, before 70 CE, when the Temple was destroyed.”  There were several “Judaisms” in the Holy Land.

This two-part topic identifies seven main Jewish religious sects or groups extant in the Land in the 1^st century.  The time when Jesus lived as a Jew and the temple still existed.  Part 1 discusses the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees.  Part 2 discusses the Herodians, Zealots, Essenes, Nazarenes.

https://bibletopicexpo.wordpress.com/2018/05/26/jewish-sects-of-the-1st-century-1/

---------------------------------

I also found a thing that said there were these sects/branches, but also there were all the other regular people. It seems that the "regular people" out numbered these different groups/sects. I'm thinking that Jesus might have been talking mostly to the regular people. Paul however was a Pharisee.

Well we all know about the first three plus the Zealots and Essenes. The Nazarenes seem to refer to Jesus and his immediate followers. It definitely seems to be the case that the Nazarenes, Pharisees/Scribes and Essenes were all apocalypticists. The Zealots and the Herodians seemed to be very political with the latter favoring not the house of David but the establishnment of the house of Herod - not sure of the religious beliefs of either of these parties.

However is he saying that there are radically different view specifically of the expected Messiah and the Kingdom to be established by God on earth? That, after all, is what we are focusing on. 

Are you saying the 'regular people' believed something different? If so, what? Regardless of whether or not he was a Pharisee, Paul was an apocalypticist like Jesus and his followers.

Will read when time permits.

13 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

Do Hurtado and Hengel state that all 1st C Jews thought alike in these matters? We are not talking about God's kingdom here, but an apocalyptic view on how this is supposed to  happen. I know that today there are many branches, at least that's what I've heard Jewish people say. How many there were back then, I don't know. Regardless, I tend to think that Jesus was able to think independently. 

No, you misunderstand. Their focus was on the earliest Christian community (the understanding of Jesus which was aided by searching their own Jewish scriptures) and how their earliest beliefs (about Jesus) came into existence or focus in the first year or so after the death (and resurrection experience) of Jesus and was received and past on to others, including Paul.

In the 2nd Temple period (the time of Jesus and the earliest community) the dominant understanding was of God's coming Kingdom and the apocalyptic understanding expressed and accepted by Jesus, his disciples, the earliest Christians and Paul (a contemporary of Jesus). I am researching any 'variations' in this understanding but it still seems to be variations within an apocalyptic view. If you have read something that radically opposes this Jewish understanding during this time, please let me know as I am interested. 

14 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

Yeah, all this preaching and teaching lead to the books. The question is, how good were/are the books?

Maybe the book writers and people behind them were trying to get a handle on and control of Christianity before all people really started believing they were all equal, so they dumped and wrapped all this hierarchical stuff on and into the books and onto Christianity.  

Well you have been quoting those books in many different posts on this site - so one can only assume you must think they are really good and good enough to quote and rely on 😋 

Just out of curiosity who exactly are you talking about that tired to control Christianity?

13 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

The Jews passed down their oral traditions for thousands of years before they were written down. The native Americans in this country have been passing down "sacred" stories for thousands of years, and they have just become written down in this past century or two.  I know people who believe that we would still know about Jesus even if the books hadn't been preserved and canonized. Mostly we know Jesus through our faith and through his spirit given to us. All people really need is just a few words about him, just the "good news" and faith and spirit can really take us from there. When people heard the "good news" in the 1st C that was a lot of all they had, and it was something real and enough. If you don't think he has a living spirit that can reach us, then what do you believe in and what is the basis of your faith?

 

The Jewish scriptures were written between the 13th and 2nd C BCE and existed in the 1st C CE - the time of the Jesus and the early community. So the good news was not all new believers had: they had the explanatory scriptures of the Jews, interpreted by Jesus's followers, the announcement of the good news and the teachings, parables and actions of Jesus that would become the basis for the Christian scriptures.

13 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

Did 1st C Gentile Christians have OT texts? My understanding is that they were kept in the synagogues on scrolls and were taken out only for readings during services. They weren't in book form and copying them was a long and painstaking process. 

 

The Gentiles and the Jews had the texts presented in the synagogues and/or explained/interpreted by 'Christians' who were bringing them the news of Jesus and salvation.

3 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

Mostly we know Jesus through our faith and through his spirit given to us. All people really need is just a few words about him, just the "good news" and faith and spirit can really take us from there. When people heard the "good news" in the 1st C that was a lot of all they had, and it was something real and enough. 

Actually we first know about him from the texts preserved in the communities down through the ages. 

And any 'few words' come from the texts - both canonical and apocrypha.

It was not all they had: Jewish Christians had the disciples' witness and the Jewish scriptural backdrop that helped to explain and present Jesus. And Gentile Christians these also since the scriptures are quoted to explain Jesus and what found its way to become the NT was already being preached within 1-2 years after the death of Jesus. 

3 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

I know people who believe that we would still know about Jesus even if the books hadn't been preserved and canonized.

What people and on what do they base this opinion?

3 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

I don't know if everyone would call Rohr a "scholar" or not.  He did receive his masters degree in theology from the University of Dayton in 1970. Regardless, he's a pretty bright and enlightened guy.

But we were specifically talking about 'scholars' and you presented him. So not a critical biblical scholar?? 

3 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

I myself would rather use the term 'in-tune' with God . . . but each to their own

I agree with that but there is still the amazing understanding of obedience and if one accepts the first commandment or even the two great commandments, one is obeying the Lord God ☺️

3 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

My understanding of Judaism is that they don't have denominations, they have "branches".  They are all Jewish, and it's not as separate as the way we understand denominations, but they do have groups, perhaps one could call them sects, that do think differently. This is true today, I can't remember the names of them, but there is a good number of them. I believe this was true back in the 1st C too.

Was Paul an apocalyptic Jew? Did he paint his ideas of apocalyptic Judaism on top of Jesus? Is that where we get that from instead of Jesus himself? Like we've mentioned, we don't even know if Jesus could read and write, we have to turn to his spirit inside us as best we can to find out. Perhaps we will never know for sure. Perhaps it is something we can only speculate on and the rest is left up to God/the Higher Spirit. 

The person and his spirit would still exist, be real, and be true,... even without a book behind or on top of him . 🙂 .

Branches or denominations, the question remains.

Plus, the apocalyptic views of Jesus, his disciples, Paul, the Pharisees and the Essenes were in agreement on the expectation of the physical Kingdom to be established by God himself. Which Jews did bot have this view in the 1st C?

Actually, Saul/Paul was already persecuting the earliest Christians for their view of Jesus as God's 'resurrected' Messiah (and we know what the Jews expected of the Messiah). Plus, it is also apparent that the disciples, as Jews, knew of such expectations and they searched their scriptures to make sense of Jesus both in light of what seemed to be a failed mission but also their experience of his resurrection and exaltation by God (resurrection was to also mark the coming Kingdom). So did he 'paint' his ideas on Jesus or did he initially 'inherit' those ideas from the earliest followers of Jesus? And actually experts and critical scholars like Hurtado, Hengel, Ehrman and others have spoken to and shown the inheritance from the earless community.

We don't have to 'turn to the Spirit' as his disciples (to whom he gave the spirit) preached the unlettered Jesus who as the Messiah, exalted by God upon whom they waited to establish the Kingdom as promised by God. 

Actually without the preaching of the disciples and the devotion of the early communities, the person (Jesus) and his spirit would never have been known -  their preaching, their stories about Jesus ..............becaeme or lead to the books 😀

3 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

I can only remember the name of one scholar, it was Young. In the late 70's early 80's I did some studying at big city libraries and ecclesiastical libraries. Some of the crap I read really made me cringe. This was before people like Spong and Ehrman and before the internet. Just recently I read someone who was claiming to be a "scholar" who said that all the books of the NT had been written before like 55 CE and that he was sure of it and all this stuff. I didn't save his name or the link, I just closed the page and moved on. I guess that people can find "scholars" to tell them what ever they want to hear no matter what it is.

There are experts of all kinds, as I mentioned above. I kind of like Richard Rohr's idea of the "tricycle". He states that experience of God and JC and the HS are the front wheel, and to him, and myself, the more important wheel, and tradition and texts are the rear wheels. Myself, seeing that most if not all of the early Christians just got the faith, and the inspiration and the "experience" of God & & through JC, with no texts what so ever (non-Jewish people had no texts not even the OT), to myself this is of real importance and meaning.

Could Jesus read and write? He's only depicted once as writing anything. This is in the sand, with the woman caught in adulatory, (just the woman, no man was brought forth with her). If a person can write, they can read. Stories in Luke tell of him being a very wise youth and talking and arguing with the elders in the temple at age twelve. Does this mean he could read and write? I don't know. Did he need to be able to read and write, and how important is it / was it, is another good question. Same for his followers, both in those days and at any time in terms of getting the faith and the spirit and the experience of God. Children seem to know and experience this best, and they can't really read and write that well or that often. There are NT and Gospel of Thomas verses that pretty much say that children are the "experts".

You have made my point: even you question if these people were scholars and you refer to their stuff as crap. It is questionable if these people are truly 'serious critical scholars.'

Is Rohr a biblical scholar? Regardless, without the NT texts, we would not know Jesus and we would not have the view of God that is revealed by him. Without the texts, the wheel would be flat.

You do know that the earliest Christians looked to their scriptural texts (our OT) to understand Jesus both as crucified Messiah and resurrected/exalted Lord and that they, by speaking of Jesus were telling his story and therefore beginning the oral tradition that were sources of our NT?  And the Gentiles 'had' texts, both the interpreted OT texts presented by the disciples to explain/present and defend Jesus and, of course, the disciples' preaching (again the beginnings of the NT oral traditions). So God, Jesus and the Spirit were delivered and presented to Jews and non-Jews by people, the missionaries, the disciples. 

Was that writing or doodling? Was it historical or a literary device? You seem to be saying, therefore Jesus could write while also saying you don't know?

10 hours ago, Pipiripi said:

You don't understand the scriptures. Jesus have says, what to do on Sabbath. Or what can we do on the Sabbath day. Read Revelation 12:17 and 14:12. Are you saying that Paul didn't keep the Sabbath day?

It seems obvious that Jesus kept holy every day and particularly the Jewish hold day of Sabbath.

As for Revelation, I never indulge given that most people, particularly literalists, misunderstand it.

16 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

Myself, I can do without the word "obedience", but each to our own I guess. To me, one just lives in Love and peace and joy, and there's no "obedience".

Can I ask, what do you mean by "the big stuff that makes or breaks a life and a marriage"?

I get that, I was simply giving the best understanding of the word, especially where it pertains to God. Also, obedience to God is also the choice for God and it is not a burden - given what obedience actually means.

To live in love, peace and joy is to be freely obedient to God since one makes important in their life what is important to God.

It is the same big stuff that is important in friendship.

16 hours ago, Elen1107 said:

I'm not good at remembering chapter and verse, if I have time, I'll  look them up.

I don't see Paul's world view as necessarily being that of Jesus or that of all 1st C Jews. One can have a bunch of 1st C Jews thinking one way, and another bunch thinking another way, (from what I've learned, they didn't all think the same, then or now). There can even be an individual who thinks their own, independent way thinking, and Jesus could quite possibly been one of these.

I agree with you that there are differences between Jesus and Paul and also differences between Jesus and each gospel writer. So what do we have left, but the spirit of Jesus within us. (& no book 🙂 ) 

 

I'm just asking in general, the name of the gospel, not chapter and verse. 

I have to ask on what do you base your take on Paul's world views being different than Jesus or other Jews. I'm not talking his theology about Jesus, but his worldview. Do you have examples of the different thinking among the different Jews? Do you mean their take on the Law or their world view? I'm not talking agreement on all things, I have simply said that apocalyptic views and expectations of the Kingdom in the 1st C were the same for Jesus, his disciples and Paul.........among many others.

It is not this book or that, rather it is the person behind the book........it is always the person since there would be no book without one :+}

Actually not in scholarly circles for over 100 years - so not really trendy or merely the thing to say. There was no 'all of a sudden' as if this is recent discovery.

Who exactly are you talking about - which scholars? 

Actually in addition to our 'own intelligence' many people refer to experts to expand their knowledge, like in science, medicine, car repair, house building, exploration of the universe, economics, cooking and.............greater depth understanding of the Bible and the history of, in particular, the 1st century.

If you can convince anyone that Jesus' world view was different than that of other Jews in the 1st C CE - I for one would be interested. Are you saying he understood the universe then in a way that we do 20 centuries later? Did he understand medicine and aliments then as medical experts do now? Plus it is at least a question (and highly doubtful) if he could write (probably not) or read and he probably only spoke Aramaic - the everyday language of his people. Sounds limited in many ways but typical for 1st C Palestinian, rural Jew. 

21 minutes ago, Elen1107 said:

For myself, what God wants me to do is also, plain and simple, what I want to be doing. It's just as much happily going along with God as with my true christ/godish self. Yeah, God shows me/us what this/these things are and how to go about things through our insight and understanding, but there is no conflict here and no "obedience". To Love God is to Love doing what one wants to do and one just wants to do what one can do inside of God. One doesn't want to do anything outside of God or outside of the holy spirit of things. 

I don't really think that anyone should be "obedient" to anyone. Yeah, sometimes one does what the other person wants to do, when they don't really want to. But that's not "obedience", that's just being nice. If the other person doesn't do the same in return, then people have to work that out. With God it's different, one just needs to be inline and in-tune with God and there is no conflict, one is just merrily going along doing what one wants to do anyways, and they end up being the same thing. It is important to realize where the higher insight and inspiration is coming from, that's just being honest with oneself and giving real credit where it's due. Being In-tune with God and in harmony with God is a lot better than being "obedient" to God. To me it just makes a lot more positive sense.

To love God is to love and do what one wants (i.e. Love) which is also what is important to God (i.e. love): this is obedience. Some don't like the word but there it is. As an example any Lover who is not 'obedient' to his/her Beloved is not planning on a long or happy relationship (whether or not they use the word obedient or not).  Actually, many people today recognize this truth: "a happy wife makes a happy life" and vice versa. 😀

And when we're talking about, for example the husband making what is important to his wife, important to him we're talking the big stuff. He doesn't have to take up pilates or become a doctor if she is, she doesn't have to love to watch comic book movies or be a teacher is he is - but this stuff is small or smaller potatoes. It is the big stuff that makes or breaks a life and a marriage.

If one is in tune or in harmony with God, then one is in tune or in harmony with Love - one is, therefore, obedient to Love. 

No I'm asking what gospel you are talking about and when was it written and since they are all 40-70 years after the death of Jesus, then they are living at a time when the Kingdom, that was to begin in the lifetime of the disciples, has not occurred. Thus there is a change of emphasis in the gospels. This has nothing to do with Paul. 

Paul's world view was the world view of Jesus and his disciples - they were contemporaries. You are denying the Jewish worldview and expectation that Jesus, a 1st C Jew shared. 

I agree there are difference from Jesus to Paul but there are also differences from Jesus to each gospel writer. 

7 minutes ago, Elen1107 said:

I know that this is the pop, trendy, group-think, modern way of understanding Jesus nower days, even among scholars. I myself just don't think it's true. I think there was and is more to the man. 

It's not pop, trendy or group think. The work of serious scholars is work in ever sense of the word. And for those non-scholars who have an interest in such learning, it is also work. Trendy is easy and doesn't demand much from anyone. And if you're talking about Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, that is not just a present, now a days, understanding of him. 

As I have said, I too think there was more to the man but he was a man, limited in many ways as are we all. However, he was not limited in what is most important. In any time, one can decide for love, become its embodiment and be a beacon, a hope, a way for others. Jesus was such a man and is, therefore, rightly called the first born Son of God.

8 minutes ago, Elen1107 said:

"Like us in all ways but sin." I haven't heard that line in a long time. Can I ask, do you believe in the virgin birth/conception? Is that how he was so free of the human "sinful" nature, or do you believe he had the same nature, but didn't sin and was able to overcome and not actually commit/do any sins?

I myself think that he might have had a bit more going for him than the world view of a 1C CE Jew. Nothing against them, I just think he knew and was aware of more. Did he know the future, in full or in part(s)? I don't know. He might have had a clue or two like we all do, if you do x, y is probably going to happen. If you say "all people are created equal", Rome or the Jewish leaders, or The 1776 English crown, or the hyper-hierarchists, or the fundamentalists are going to get mad at you. So what does one do then? Stick to it and keep bringing up the idea again and again until people get it I guess.

I'm not much for "obedience" to God. I'm also not much for the 'commandment' to love God. To me, if one knows God, one loves God, it's that simple. If one knows God and loves God then it's not "obedience". One just wants to do the right thing(s) gladly and happily, and with an open and smiling heart, and there's no real "obedience" tacked on to it.  Of course I've never been asked to go to a cross, or have my throat slit for my beliefs, but I still think there might be more to it.

Competition? I've known some people who seem to go into competition with Christ. It's like it's about, 'who's the greatest person ' in town or in all eternity for that matter. They are always trying to bring Christ down and or build themselves up. Maybe so they can take Christ's or God's place in other people's lives, I don't know. Maybe they had a mommy or daddy who put them first, before even god, and they want and expect that from everyone else and don't get why they are not getting it. I don't know, but I've seen it happen.

No, I don't take literally the immaculate conception/the virgin birth. So no connection to 'without sin.' I believe he was born just like us and that he was just like us in all ways. I further believe that he, probably because he was born into 'the people of God' and learned from them, that he developed an incredible consciousness or awareness of God as Abba and he was (became) obedient to God (obedience means what is important to the other, you make important to you). It is this (i.e. Love) that made Jesus 'special' and different - different not in kind but in degree, the degree that he loved and was selfless (thus sinless). We have through the ages considered so much sin that never was. having said that, I have no idea if Jesus ever did anything wrong in his life but being sinless is not about particular moments but what has become and who one is 'in a lifetime.' 

Again, human being don't know the future. We might be able to 'read the signs of the time' and have an idea that if one continues down a particular road then what is likely to happen is X. But that is knowing the future. 

I think obedience is completely misunderstood. It is, I think an amazing word and idea. If one is friends with someone, then the friends if true are obedient to one another: what is important to my friend I make important to me and I do not violate the friendship. Some people have issues with the marriage vow that includes obedience. I think both partners should make such a promise. To be obedient to God is to simply make important in your life what is important to God.........and that simply is to Love. And it is in loving that we become sinless, children of God and the incarnation of God.To know God is to love and that is obedience - given this definition. And it is done gladly and happily ........out of love.

I'm not aware of the kind of competition you describe and it seems a bit ridiculous on it face, doesn't it?

54 minutes ago, Elen1107 said:

I get a little tired of foo-foo "scholars and experts" sometimes, (though at other times I do appreciate them). It shouldn't be so incredibly complicated and people shouldn't need 3 PHDs to understand the basic faith and love in Christ. They shouldn't even have to read and write and a whole bunch of other technical stuff that seems to be spread all over and under the life and eternity of Christ.

It's my understanding that some Jews believe in eternity and some don't. Which are which, I couldn't tell you.

If you are going to get your understanding of Christ just from Paul, then you are layering Paul onto Christ. Just because he was the first writer in the cannon, doesn't mean he was always right, or always knew everything. There's the difference in his letters and the pseudo-Paul letter(s) that the reresection had already begun, or that people were already stepping into eternity, or whether this happened later, or even and including after death.

I just tend to think that Jesus knew more. He had some idea that the coming of the kingdom was not this once and for all time apocalyptic event. If one looks at it from one point of view, one could say that when one passes into Christ, that one passes into another spiritual "dimension",  where eternity really is inside and all around one.

Looking at it from another point of view, one could say that "apocalypses" have been happening in some form or other all through out history. Whether it's the destruction of the 2nd temple, the fall of Rome, the black plague, the world wars, covid, etc. I don't know how it fits together and probably never will. 

I do try to focus on the positive side, for myself it just seems better and makes my mind clearer. 

If one wants to read for devotional purposes or spiritual understanding, it actually is not very complicated at all. 

However if one (also) approaches the Bible as literature and theology and seeks to get a handle on early Christianity and the historical Jesus, it seems like a scholar is helpful in that endeavor.As Ehrman has said if you go for a medical procedure, you want an expert so too, if one wants to 'study' the Bible, it only makes sense to go to an expert. 

From what I have read, in the 1st C CE, the apocalyptic expectation of the physical Kingdom was 'the' understanding. Other than that, I don't know what Jews you're talking about.

If one looks to Paul to understand Jesus - it is helpful to see how much Paul got from the earliest communities of the followers ofJesus and it is considerable. In addition, the only Jesus we get is filtered through the Gospels and they present 4 portraits ofJesus. If there are differences between the pseudo Paul and Paul it would be helpful to have some idea of when the pseudo Paul was written. If it is after Paul then that might coincide with a softening of apocalyptic beliefs because they were living in the time when there was no Kingdom that had been established.

If Jesus knew more then we're back to a Jesus who was not like us, therefore not really human.Again I don't disagree with what you are saying about the Kingdom but it is doubtful if the historical Jesus of 30 CE would've agreed with you.

The apocalyptic understanding was that with the fall of the other kingdoms, God would establish his Kingdom on earth - it has not happened.

I am ver positive, I am simply differentiating between what I believe about the Kingdom in the 21st C and what we know Jews, including Jesus, his disciples and Paul, believed or expected in the 1st C.

1 hour ago, Elen1107 said:

Oh Gawd! I hadn't even heard of this QAnon thing. Went and googled it. Oh Gawd . ! . . 

Don't know what to think of it yet.

Hope it just goes away.

Oh Gawd!

It reminds me just a bit of nazism. Perhaps this is what starts to happen when one group starts to feel overwhelmed by another. - Crazy stuff - There are much more sensible and forthright ways of dealing with it than what ever this stuff is. This earth is big enough for all of us, whether we want to culturally-centric or integrated or any and all combinations of the two. 

Oh Gawd! I really didn't need to know about this Q thing right now. This world has enough problems. Oh Gawd! Hopefully Gawd can handle some of it so we don't have to, or so we don't even have to look at it. Oh Gawd!

-------------------

Edit> Sounds like a form of al-anon with the 'al' taken out and a 'Q" put in. Maybe they are recovering from something, . . .  super-selfie-ism ? ... ?

........and this is just one day in the crazy world of the trumpster and his minions 😟 

42 minutes ago, Elen1107 said:

Would you say that to all our nurses and doctors and firefighters? 

Those who risk their lives in order to save and protect the rest of us. Or would you just tell them, after all they give, that they are just going to hell?

Better to do what Paul said, everyone can choose which day they want to dedicate to God and spirituality.

Or perhaps the ideal is if one always lives that dedication and spirituality. 

1 hour ago, Elen1107 said:

First off, how much "like us" do you need him to be? He was human, but perhaps the best of and the most that any human could or can ever be. If I, as a person, were to try to enter in to a competition with him, I'd just give up before step one, and say you have it, you win. I don't however think this is so much of a competition or anything like that. Maybe a learning experience and something more, maybe something much, much more. But a competition, no. I'm just not doing that.

The verses where Jesus is quoted as saying, (quotes are from memory here), "The kingdom of heaven is within you", "The kingdom of heaven comes in a way that cannot be seen", "The kingdom of heaven is scattered among you and people do not see it". These verses don't sound very apocalyptic and actual, physical "end of the worldy" to me. Don't see how people see him as being so  completely apocalyptic in this way, when there are much subtler verses that express the coming of the kingdom.

If JC was just a regular person, and he had set the changes in motion that he did, it doesn't take that big an all seeing outlook to figure that things would pan out somewhat the way that they did. That the kingdom inbreaks and fades and then inbreaks again, (over and over again), as the rest of us humans slowly make our way forward.

Like us in all ways but sin (the degree of our selfishness). And we do not know the future or how things will unfold. He was not best in his knowledge in that he had the worldview of a 1C CE Jew. No best in knowing what cause certain aliments or illnesses. However, I do agree he was 'best' in his obedience to God and his embedding the Love that was God. Competition? 

Again, what gospels for the verse, when were those gospels written and they were all after decades of waiting for the Kingdom and began to move to a 'delayed end-time.' It seems that the more genuine sayings are the truly apocalyptic ones. 

Jesus saw the beginning of what was basically a new religion, Christianity? Jesus saw the Temple being destroyed in the year it was destroyed? 

Where does Jesus talk about the Kingdom breaking, fading and break-in in again? If this is your present take, I get it but if we're talking about the Jesus of the 1st C - it's just not there, it seems. 

Jesus could have been the epitome of humanity, the fullest incarnation or embodiment of God - however he was still a man, limited in so many ways - except the one that counts most.

1 hour ago, Elen1107 said:

I lean towards thinking that people saw his eternity, or saw/experienced the eternity in him, during his earthly life/ministry, not just after the reresection.

There are plenty of verses about eternal life, and his being the messiah, in the body of and during the course of the gospels. 

If that is opinion, fine. However, it is not backed up in biblical studies by the experts - and if we're talking about the texts, I go with the experts. Plus did the 1C CE Jews talk about 'experiencing eternity' - would that have even made sense to them? Or did they believe in a physical, earthly Kingdom that was imminent? 

As to the verses you mentioned, it would have to be asked in what gospel are they found. And of course all of the gospels were written with 4 to 7 decades of believing that Jesus was the messiah.