IndependentInvestigator

I'm understanding better why Baha'u'llah and Abdul-Baha spoke so much about detachment from prejudices and preconceived ideas. If one has definite expectations about what the messiah, or a new prophet, etc., should be like and holds to those no matter what, then one will reject any divine messenger who doesn't fit them.

I'm not 100% sure for myself just how far to take this idea. Surely one ought to expect that the new will be basically consistent with the old, but what's the minimum amount of consistency?

I think the early Christians were able to accept Jesus as the Messiah precisely because they believed he had risen bodily and therefore could come back to fulfill the prophecies regarding the Messiah. For someone to be the Messiah simply meant that they would be the new Davidic king who would deliver Israel from bondage and usher in an era of universal liberty, peace, and righteousness. This was how the concept had been defined in the very Hebrew scriptures that had introduced it. So, it actually seems like the Jews should have rejected anyone who failed to fulfill that. The idea Christians had about Jesus is that his fulfillment of it was only delayed: that his resurrected self would return to finish the job. It seems to me that without that idea they would have--rightly, and by definition--rejected Jesus as Messiah.

BUT...perhaps I'm mistaken on this. If I had been there, would I have followed him and continued to follow him in spite of his death? And would I have done so whether or not he was resurrected? That Jesus was of God is obvious from his teachings and his impact on the world. Could I have fully accepted that? I need to ponder this.

Don

armin

Those are some great thoughts! I may be mistaken, hopefully not, that in our faith we consider Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies. He didn't if we look at it literally and psychically but that is not what religions are about. Christ fulfilled the prophecies spiritually as they were meant to be understood by God's men. Yet another reason to focus more in our interpretation of scriptures less physically. Another idea in my head is that fulfilling those prophecies spiritually is a much more grand task than doing them physically!

Given I'm not wrong with my assertion (I couldn't find any reliable sources in my quick search to back it up) then I hope is can shatter those preconceptions about how things are supposed to happen as opposed to our human understanding of them.

In short, one can find a myriad problems with the fulfillment of each prophecy when looking at it strictly in physical terms. Free yourself from those preconceptions given to us and new doors will open in your spiritual growth.

PS. I really enjoyed reading what you had to say. That is real independent investigation of the truth

IndependentInvestigator

Thanks, Armin!

It occurs to me that whether a given prophecy or teaching has a literal dimension or not, it almost certainly has spiritual/allegorical application. So it would be wise of me to explore the possibilities of allegorical interpretation either way.

Don

cire perdue

I don't think the Virgin Birth or the bodily resurrection is so relevent to the development of faith in a Faith that engenders entire societal/world changes. What is relevent is that Christ was the embodiment of the Holy Spirit. In a faithful relationship with Jesus with prayer and living the life, one is not focused on nor are the signs very relevent at all. The reciprocity of a living faith in the Spirit is what changes people. I still don't think belief in the physical body of Christ rising had much impact. What did have impact was that the Word of God taught people that there was a heaven, that how one lived life on this earth did have an impact, love is of God, and life is meant to be more than being a master over many. These Words are not just words and not just beliefs, because they have corresponding realities that will resonate in us truly and change us.

I know that Baha'u'llah performed miracles, though I am pressed to think of them, but it is the revealed Word and the teachings that impact my life. Because these Words contain the Holy Spirit, that impacts my life. I can probably even believe wrongly, yet these Words will impact my life. If I believe in the bodily resurrection and it did not happen, I don't think my prayers will be ignored.

Because Christ did not display the signs the Jewish people desired that would advance them, they rejected Christ. It is the test of the signs that is going to determine believers or not. After His Person the truest test of a Messenger from God is the Writings. There were those who by merely seeing Christ and Baha'u'llah knew who They were. There is no change in the process, one just as before needs a seeing eye and a hearing ear.

arthra

Don wrote:

"I think the early Christians were able to accept Jesus as the Messiah precisely because they believed he had risen bodily and therefore could come back to fulfill the prophecies regarding the Messiah.."

Don,

You may be under a misapprehension about the early years of the Christian dispensation...

Please see the following that refer to the diversity of the early Christians:

The Diversity Of Early Christianity | From Jesus To Christ - The First Christians | FRONTLINE | PBS

Diversity in early Christian theology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LordOfGoblins

Ok. We cant sensibly think the early CHristians accepted Jesus was the messiah because he brought himself back from the dead. Where is the faith in that? Are you saying all the time he spent with them was not enough to convince them. He could not convince them who he was by his own self so he had to resourt to hocus-pocus...

arthra

Ok. We cant sensibly think the early CHristians accepted Jesus was the messiah because he brought himself back from the dead. Where is the faith in that?

Accepting Jesus as Messiah means accepting Him as a liberator and in this case a spiritual liberator and had they followed His teachings about going the extra mile, carrying the burdens and rendering what was Caesars to Caesar, rendering good for evil there would be a better chance Jerusalem would have been spared rather than following a warlike messiah like Simon bar Kochba..

Bringing people back to life and opening their eyes and ears was a spiritual event.. It would have little use if someone was to be brought back to life only to extend a life a few weeks or years only to be returned to the grave.

IndependentInvestigator

Hi Arthra,

I've read a fair amount about early Christianity and am aware of early Christian diversity--just look at the range of the texts actually in the New Testament! I'm not, however, aware that Christians of the first couple generations disagreed about Christ's bodily resurrection or didn't think he needed to be resurrected in order to be the Messiah. If the sources you're referring me to bear on that directly, I'd certainly want to read or watch them; so please let me know.

Also the earliest Christian community, the group of disciples that first survived his death, was not, that I'm aware, particularly large, widespread, or diverse. And I've seen only one explanation for how they could continue to embrace him as the Messiah despite his execution--their belief in his resurrection and return. If there are sources pointing in other directions than this for the very first Christians, again, I'd like to see them.

Don

LordOfGoblins

Sorry this statement was in fact intended for Don...

arthra

Don wrote:

"I'm not, however, aware that Christians of the first couple generations disagreed about Christ's bodily resurrection or didn't think he needed to be resurrected in order to be the Messiah. If the sources you're referring me to bear on that directly, I'd certainly want to read or watch them; so please let me know."

Sure Don..

From Harold W. Attridge:
The Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament Yale Divinity School:

The Christian movement probably began not from a single center but from many different centers where different groups of disciples of Jesus gathered and tried to make sense of what they had experienced with him and what had happened to him at the end of his public ministry. Each of those groups probably had a very different take on what the significance of Jesus was. Some of them understanding his death and the resurrection experience, if they focused on it, in terms of exaltation. Others understanding it in terms of a resuscitation of the corpse of Jesus, others not worrying very much at all about the resurrection of Jesus, but concentrating on his teaching and trying to propagate that.

.................................................. .........

Helmut Koester:
John H. Morison Professor of New Testament Studies and Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History Harvard Divinity School


Christianity did not start out as a unified movement. We have to remember that the disciples were probably dispersed at a very early time.... That is, at a time where there was no fixed formulation what the set of Christian beliefs should be. What Christian rituals should be. What they should think about Jesus or what they should tell about Jesus. The sources that we have tell us that Christianity started as a very diverse movement, as the founding of churches... moved into very different cultural and language contexts....

.................................................

Wayne A. Meeks:
Woolsey Professor of Biblical Studies Yale University

Now, this runs very contrary to the view... which the mainstream Christianity has always quite understandably wanted to convey. That is, that at the beginning, everything was unity, everything was clear, everything was understandable and only gradually, under outside influences, heresies arose and conflict resulted, so that we must get back somehow to that Golden Age, when everything was okay. One of the most difficult things which has emerged from modern historical scholarship, is precisely that that Golden Age eludes us. The harder we work to try to arrive at that first place where Christianity, were all one and everything was clear, the more it... seems a will-o'- the-wisp.

Read more: The Diversity Of Early Christianity | From Jesus To Christ - The First Christians | FRONTLINE | PBS

Iconodule

It seems only one of those quotes are relevent, and even then I see from it no direct proof only claims. how does one reach the conclusion there were differing ideas on the ressurection? What sources does he use? The Only possible sources he and the bahai could go to would be the docetics, Gnostics and other groups of that same bent which were not Christian but classified by almost everyone as heretics. It seems to me that there was a unity within early Christianity if we read the scripture and the patristic literature, was this a unity in the sense of today's unity? Probably not, it was probably more loose, indeed Christians still had to work out things, the desciples still had to address things formalise things and codify them into the Christian mindset, so its not hard to see why there were debates on how or if gentiles should be admitted into the church, what place the law has and etc. But ultimately I have to agree with Don on this matter I see no great difference of ideas regarding the ressurection within early Christian thought, the first deviant thoughts away from the physical ressurection (which I think Don has already Beutifully established) are found within the Docetics who believed Christ did not have a physical body (see Ignatius's Critique on the subject for proof of that), then the gnostics, and it basically took off from there.

arthra

Iconodule,

Welcome back!

I was meaning to ask you if you had completed your catechumen class?

If you peruse the following article you'll get an idea...

Diversity in early Christian theology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Adoptionism

Main article: Adoptionism

An early form of Adoptionism, the doctrine that Jesus became the Son of God by adoption,[5] held that Jesus was born human only, and that he became divine, by adoption at his baptism,[6] being chosen because of his sinless devotion to the will of God.[7] The first representatives of this view were the Ebionites.[8] They understood Jesus as Messiah and Son of God in terms of the anointing at his baptism.[9] While the 27 books that became the New Testament canon present Jesus as fully human,[10] Adoptionists (who may have used non-canonical gospels) in addition excluded any miraculous origin for him, seeing him as simply the child of Joseph and Mary, born of them in the normal way.[11]

Some scholars view a non-canonical gospel used by the Ebionites, now lost except for fragments quoted in the Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis[12] as the first to be written,[13][14][15] and believe Adoptionist theology may predate the New Testament.[16][17] Others, on the contrary, consider that this work "clearly presupposes the canonical Gospels".[18] This gospel's account of the baptism of Jesus, as quoted by Epiphanius, says that the voice from heaven declared: "This day have I begotten thee",[19] a phrase echoing Psalm 2:7, and some see this phrase as supporting the doctrine that it was at his baptism ("this day") that Jesus became God's (adopted) son. These words from Psalm 2 are also used twice in the canonical Epistle to the Hebrews,[20] which on the contrary presents Jesus as the Son "through whom (God) made the universe."[21]

The Adoptionist view was later developed by adherents of the form of Monarchianism that is represented by Theodotus of Byzantium and Paul of Samosata.[8]

Adoptionism clearly conflicted with the claim, as in the Gospel of John (see Alogi for those who rejected the Gospel of John), that Jesus is the eternal Word, and it was declared a heresy[by whom?] at the end of the 2nd century. It was formally rejected by the First Council of Nicaea (325), which wrote the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity and identified Jesus as eternally begotten.

[edit] Arianism

Main article: Arianism

Arianism, declared by the Council of Nicaea to be heresy, denied the full divinity of Jesus Christ, and is so called after its leader Arius.[22] It has been called the most challenging heresy in the history of the Church.[23]

Arius, born probably in Libya between c. 260 and 280, was ordained a priest in Alexandria in 312-313. Under Bishop Alexander (313-326), probably in about 319, he came forward as a champion of subordinationist teaching about the person of Christ.[24]

Arius appears to have held that the "Son of God" was not eternal but created by the Father as an instrument for creating the world and therefore not God by nature, different from other creatures in being the one direct creation of God.[22] The controversy quickly spread, with Arius seeking support from other disciples of his teacher Lucian of Antioch, notably Eusebius of Nicomedia, while a local synod under Alexander excommunicated Arius.[24] Because of the agitation aroused by the dispute,[22] Emperor Constantine I sent Hosius of Córdoba to Alexandria to attempt a settlement; but the mission failed.[24] Accordingly, in 325, Constantine convened the First Council of Nicaea, which, largely through the influence of Athanasius of Alexandria, then a deacon, but destined to be Alexander's successor, defined the coeternity and coequality of the Father and the Son, using the now famous term "homoousios" to express the oneness of their being, while Arius and some bishops who supported him, including Eusebius, were banished.[22]

This council marks the end of the Early Christian period and the beginning of the period of the First seven Ecumenical Councils.

[edit] Ebionites

Main article: Ebionites

The Ebionites ("poor ones") were a sect of Jewish Christians who flourished in the early centuries of Christianity, especially east of the Jordan. They emphasized the binding character of the Mosaic Law and believed Jesus was the human son of Joseph and Mary. They seem to have been ascetics, and are said to have rejected Paul's epistles and to have used only one Gospel.[25]


If you recall even the Guards who crucified the Lord Jesus refused to divide His robe... It would be wonderful if Christianity had few divisions and splits but alas this is not the case... I think a Christian Forum would probably be the proper venue to discuss this rather than a Baha'i Forum.

Iconodule

We're asking for differences within early Christianity (none of those movements were Christian) about the ressurection and you can give none. I'm well aware of the heresies of the ebionites, judaisers and arrians, but they certaintly never denied the physical ressurection at least to my knowledge, and if you appeal to any of those groups you have to recognise they contradict the bahai as well as the Orthodox did, theres no getting around this. So show us the early diversity regarding the ressurection.

Btw the arrians and Ebionites did not exist until the 3rd and 2nd centuries respectively.

IndependentInvestigator

Hi Arthra,

Thanks for those sources. The author who says Christianity began from many geographical centers where Jesus' disciples were--I'm wondering how much evidentiary support and scholarly agreement his position garners. Jesus' disciples were generally expected to "follow" him in his journeys; and his death at Jerusalem would have put an end to his movement even in the hinterlands when word of it spread unless those in other locations had reason to believe death had not been the end of him--i.e., they knew of the Resurrection.

I do think there was some doctrinal diversity in early Christianity. But I'm not aware of diversity on certain points within the earliest generations. For instance, the earliest (let's say first couple generations) seem from the sources seem have to have agreed on a few things: e.g., Christ as the Messiah and the Son of God (with some variation in how they believed he became Son of God, the Resurrection, and Christ as exalted to the right hand of God. I'm aware that the much later Docetists and Gnostics disagreed on the Resurrection, but I'm unaware of evidence for similar positions in the faith's early decades.

Don

IndependentInvestigator

Gently stated, Arthra.

I'm not particularly inclined to disagree. I think such questions do have bearing for people trying to suss out Baha'i-Christian issues, per the discussion above. But I don't personally feel we need to hash it out in detail here and now.

With such a wide source of information as the Internet, and with scholars taking at least as wide a diversity of positions in interpreting early Christianity as existed among the Christians of the second century, it's easy to find scholars who will say something usable as ammunition. This sort of quote mining that discussion board debate encourages is a poor way of getting at the truth. Really understanding history requires digging into it in detail, assessing what the majority of the experts think and why they think it, etc.

We really can't do that here, not just because it's a Baha'i message board rather than a Christian one, but because the structure and dynamics of message boards make it the wrong venue for such a search.

God bless,

Don

arthra

Iconodule

You didn't answer my question.. I asked if you ever completed your catechumen class?

Iconodule

The priest has basically affirmed me ready for baptism Arthra if you must know, its only a matter of when and where. As if my life has any relevance to to the discussion at hand. Perhaps you can answer my question. Would you still consider someone a true Bahai if they contradicted Baha'u'llah?

IndependentInvestigator

Congratulations, Iconodule!!!

Don