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I am a film maker and recently released a documentary on the biblical Jesus his intentions and motivation. I would be interested in feed back on the documentary if you care to watch it but also would like to know what you think motivated Jesus if looked through the lens of biblical character.
I think there's reasonable doubt whether he existed, and especially whether the accounts of him given in the New Testament can be believed. I consider them suspect; they should be evaluated like any other work of ancient Near Eastern literature, no more special than Tacitus or Xenophon.
And that's not even addressing the supernatural stuff, which is a matter of faith; if one believes it, one believes it on faith, but history is about evidence and interpretation rather than faith. I don't have a problem with whatever people take on faith, so long as they don't try to assert that "because I believe this" suffices as objective supporting evidence.
I think there's reasonable doubt whether he existed, and especially whether the accounts of him given in the New Testament can be believed. I consider them suspect; they should be evaluated like any other work of ancient Near Eastern literature, no more special than Tacitus or Xenophon.
And that's not even addressing the supernatural stuff, which is a matter of faith; if one believes it, one believes it on faith, but history is about evidence and interpretation rather than faith. I don't have a problem with whatever people take on faith, so long as they don't try to assert that "because I believe this" suffices as objective supporting evidence.
I agree with you 100% on these points my friend. I guess I made the documentary to examine Jesus as a character in a book while also assuming that as a character he was just human and corruptible. Through that lens examining the bible I put together my documentary. So what do you think motivated Jesus the biblical character.
It is difficult to arrive at an evidence based conclusion about Jesus since the evidence is suspect and we are absent any eyewitness testimony regarding his life.
Using the Q concept to weed out suspected additions and agenda motivated passages, scholars have found a Jesus who was largely concerned with reforming Judaism rather than providing the world with a new religion. Jesus appears to be allied with The Baptist in anti-Temple attitudes and ultimately it was this attitude which got him executed. The Romans ruled Judea through the Sanhedrin and Jesus represented a threat to that body, thus a threat to Roman rule and order.
At some point in his career he got carried away with himself and introduced the Son Of Man and Kingdom of Heaven concepts, both very poorly defined, and may have gone to his death believing that his "Father", or Yahweh, would intervene to save him.
That is what we may abstract if we can trust at least the historical narrative of the New Testament, which of course we don't know as trustworthy
It is difficult to arrive at an evidence based conclusion about Jesus since the evidence is suspect and we are absent any eyewitness testimony regarding his life.
Using the Q concept to weed out suspected additions and agenda motivated passages, scholars have found a Jesus who was largely concerned with reforming Judaism rather than providing the world with a new religion. Jesus appears to be allied with The Baptist in anti-Temple attitudes and ultimately it was this attitude which got him executed. The Romans ruled Judea through the Sanhedrin and Jesus represented a threat to that body, thus a threat to Roman rule and order.
At some point in his career he got carried away with himself and introduced the Son Of Man and Kingdom of Heaven concepts, both very poorly defined, and may have gone to his death believing that his "Father", or Yahweh, would intervene to save him.
That is what we may abstract if we can trust at least the historical narrative of the New Testament, which of course we don't know as trustworthy
I guess in my attempt to come up with over all motivations and goals I threw all the canonical Gospels in a blender and tried to make chronological-ish mash up of Mark, Matthew, John, and Luke and after that looking at the events I tried to read between the lines with the assumption that Jesus was human, was not the son of God, and no one including him had special powers. Through this lens I saw a power hungry corrupt magician/trickster/cult leader
Through this lens I saw a power hungry corrupt magician/trickster/cult leader
He may have been, but the unreliable evidence which we do have suggests otherwise. It presents more a picture of a religious idealist, angry with cozy arrangement between the Sanhedrin and the Romans, who then targeted not the Roman masters, but rather their cooperative puppets. Along with John, Jesus would have viewed the High Priests as sell outs who forfeited their right to their position by accepting comfort and support from Rome. It appears that Jesus was out to overthrow the Temple faction, without overthrowing the Romans..a hopeless task.
Perhaps....
One may readily see that much of the New Testament was re-write, designed to squeeze the life of Jesus into the prophecies concerning the Messiah. The most stunning example of their clumsiness in this regard is found right at the beginning of Mathew where the author traces 450 years of begats in order to link King David and Joseph the carpenter, fulfilling the prophecy that the Messiah would come from the house of David. Then in the very next paragraph, we get the story of the virgin birth, which completely severs Jesus from blood relations with Joseph, and thus also with David.
That the producers of this gospel failed to grasp the immense contradiction being presented, certainly suggests multiple authors working at cross purposes and probably at different times. You say that you employed a mash-up of the four gospels, but it seems probable that each gospel was a mash-up in itself.
..... So what do you think motivated Jesus the biblical character.
This is likely too simplistic, I am not well versed in these subjects but maybe he was just a nice guy who thought kindness to others should take precedence over everything else and he got caught up in politics of the time and was used by folks who were stronger willed than he was and then it was all blown way out of proportion by authors of bible.
Last edited by mensaguy; 07-18-2017 at 01:21 PM..
Reason: Fixed quote
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