Was Jesus good? Was he sinless?
No. Jesus was not good.
The synoptic Gospels all agree:
Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good.”
-Matthew 19:16-17
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.”
-Mark 10:17-18
A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.”
-Luke 18:18-19
Yes. Jesus was sinless.
Jesus said to them, … “Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?”
-John 8:42-46
But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.
-1 John 3:5
Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.”
-1 Peter 2:21-22
We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.
-Hebrews 4:14-16
Tags: God, Bible, Jesus, Teaching, Conflicting, Sin, Primitive, Archaic, False, Flawed, Inconsistent, Good, Sinless, Without sin
January 26, 2010 at 10:40 am |
Yes, you would think that an omnipotent deity would have been able to write a bit better than that? Either that or you have to question whether any god was behind the words. Wine serves up a pretty good rendition of the muses too.
Before the Christian Bible was canonized, each book was just a book on it’s own, apart from the Torah that is. A library or collection of stories. Each with it’s own author and plot failures. Each with it’s own frailties of completeness for the early Christians. By putting them all together Constantine had hoped to cover up the inconsistencies and create a full storyline. A sort of guide so that all the various sects could stop bickering about the right way to be a Christian and they could all just fall in line with him.
ooooops, guess that didn’t work out so well in some respects. I think he managed the organization part and the part about getting all the Christians under one banner… well, until that pesky ML guy.
Since the advent of the Christian church it has been beset with problems of this nature. Look at the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches; why do they exist? It goes on and on…. trouble unending.
January 26, 2010 at 11:50 am |
This is pretty lame.
Jesus did not say ‘I am not Good’
He asked ‘why do you say that?’
January 26, 2010 at 12:11 pm |
He asked “why do you say that,” because he was a man … not God. At least this was the story at the time when the synoptic Gospels were written.
Trinity theology hadn’t been invented yet, and the sinless Jesus texts only came later to tie to Old Testament prophesy in Isaiah 53:9.
The Bible evolved just like everything else in the world. The fictional story of Jesus started him out as God’s son, but was later embellished to present him as God in the flesh. Literally God in a man’s body in two places at the same time, praying to himself and sacrificing himself to himself. Unfortunately, the texts blatantly conflict on the subject. Not to mention how absurd the story is.
Christians don’t even agree on this one.
January 26, 2010 at 1:28 pm |
None of which lends any credence to your OP that ‘the Bible teaches Jesus was not good.’
Son of God or God in the flesh, the Bible doesn’t present Him as ‘not good’ in either case.
Your premise has no legs, my friend.
January 26, 2010 at 5:13 pm |
This quote from the book of Mark clearly shows that Jesus did not claim to be sinless. That only his sky daddy is good.
By biblical definition, every man who sins is “not good” and deserves death. The purpose of the Gospel is obviously not to teach that Jesus is not good. But this repeated quote clearly illustrates that the original version of the story did not proclaim Jesus sinless, or remotely equate him to the level of Yahweh. He was God’s virgin love child. The god/man version of the story came in later fictional embellishments.
January 26, 2010 at 7:24 pm |
As always, BeAttitutde, thank you for your posts–they always give me a good laugh! Of course, this is due to your extreme literary ignorance, historical ineptitude, and the like, but a laugh is a laugh, and I’m thankful that a modern, 21st century atheist is so much smarter and wiser than the foolish, ignorant writers of the Gospels who obviously didn’t know what was going on, much less what they were writing. We’re grateful to you for showing us your superior intellect in this way. Hats off to you!
January 26, 2010 at 8:05 pm |
Its due to 2nd century Catholics monkeying with the text! Matthew 19:16-17 originally read “One THING is good” (i.e. keeping the moral commandments, which is clearly CONTEXTUALLY the argument that Jesus is making) rather than “One is good” implying that he is speaking of God. That’s why in the manuscript tradition there are several variants: “One thing is good”, “One is good”, “One is good, i.e. God” “Only one is good, i.e. God” — The original one is the one that fits the context, i.e. “One thing is good.”
Compare the following variants of Matthew 19:17, my ignorant friend:
Variant 1 “And he said to him, Why do ask me about what’s good? One thing is good: and if you would enter into life, keep the commandments.”
Variant 2 “And he said to him, Why do you call me good? One thing is good: and if you would enter into life, keep the commandments.”
Variant 3 “And he said to him, Why do you call me good? One is good: and if you would enter into life, keep the commandments.”
Variant 4 “And he said to him, Why do you call me good? One is good, i.e. God: and if you would enter into life, keep the commandments.”
Variant 5 “And he said to him, Why do you call me good? Only One is good, i.e. God: and if you would enter into life, keep the commandments.”
Do you see the progession that was made over time with this? Don’t you see how some stupid faith-onlyist monks moved the text away from what Jesus originally said to something that would defend their moronic doctrine of nobody being able to be good but God (and hence everyone having to just be saved by faith alone)?
If not, it is clearly you are ignorant, and blind to boot.
January 26, 2010 at 11:08 pm |
The ignorant author of Mark invented this quote. The other two just plagiarized him. Forty to seventy years had passed before the Gospel stories were manufactured. The authors had no idea what was going on because they didn’t actually witness the events. It’s fictional hearsay.
Foolish and ignorant are perfect words to describe the authors of the Gospels. These unknown authors wrote about a man they never met and events they didn’t witness. They thought the earth was flat with the heavens above and hell below. They believed the earth was the center of the universe and only 6,000 years old. So it’s not hard to understand why they would manufacture a god to explain everything they didn’t understand. Yahweh and Jesus are on a very long list of gods invented by ignorant men.
January 26, 2010 at 7:43 pm |
theBEattitude wrote:
“But this repeated quote clearly illustrates that the original version of the story did not proclaim Jesus sinless, or remotely equate him to the level of Yahweh.”
Perhaps you should read the whole book. In fact all three synoptics (Matt 9, Mark 2, Luke 5) include the story of Jesus telling a man ‘Your sins are forgiven’ and the Jewish scribes challenging Him ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?’
Jesus reply was ‘so that you know that I have power to forgive sins…’ turning to the man he said ‘arise take up your bed and walk’
How can you say that the synoptics do not portray Jesus as claiming to be God?
January 26, 2010 at 7:57 pm |
In Matthew 19:16-17 there is a textual variant that reads “One thing is good” rather than “One is good” (referencing God). It is obvious that “one is good” is a corruption that doesn’t match the context. It is a sola-fideanism that alters the actual point Jesus is apparently making there, i.e. that keeping the moral commandments is what is necessary to have eternal life.
January 26, 2010 at 9:16 pm |
Jesus did not exist anyways.
January 27, 2010 at 8:09 am |
theBEattitude wrote:
“This quote from the book of Mark clearly shows that Jesus did not claim to be sinless. That only his sky daddy is good. ”
but in another place, theBEattitude wrote:
“The ignorant author of Mark invented this quote. The other two just plagiarized him. Forty to seventy years had passed before the Gospel stories were manufactured. The authors had no idea what was going on because they didn’t actually witness the events. It’s fictional hearsay.”
Funny how you will accept the quote from Mark when you think it proves what you want to hear……..
…………. but when another Mark passage doesn’t line up with your presuppositions, then the author is either ignorant or simply repeating folklore.
lol
January 27, 2010 at 12:05 pm |
I don’t accept any of the texts … it’s all folklore. I only point out the many flaws of the Bible to illustrate this fact. Divinely inspired texts would not be so terribly erroneous and inconsistent.
I don’t use these texts to prove these events actually happened. The Bible is man-made fiction. The texts are inconsistent because the authors added their own creative touch to the story to convince the audience they were writing for.
These post illustrate how absurd it is to believe these men witnessed any of the events they write about. Not to prove Jesus actually existed. If you don’t like this one, I have plenty of other Bible absurdities if you’d like to comment:
http://thebeattitude.com/category/bible-teaching-of-the-week/
January 27, 2010 at 1:21 pm |
theBEattitude wrote:
“I don’t accept any of the texts”
Yes, this is what you say NOW.
But you sure quoted it authoritatively when you thought it made your point.
lol
Let me ask you, since you believe that the texts were altered hundreds of years after they were written…….
The gospels, for instance, had been translated into numerous languages and spread all over the known world in the space of about a hundred years.
How did the conspirators convince churches whose members were on the watch for false believers in their midst and who had been persecuted for their faith in the gospel message (and who had seen their fellow believers die for the faith) to suddenly accept wholesale alterations of the text which changed the meaning completely?
An unlikely occurence, IMHO.
January 27, 2010 at 2:37 pm |
It’s more likely than you think. Once a formal version of the ‘bible’ was ratified everything else and anyone believing anything else became heretical. As you should know, nearly everything though heretical was burned… at the stake or otherwise. With those terms of use, pretty much everyone is going to go along with the changes.
January 27, 2010 at 9:32 pm |
“The gospels, for instance, had been translated into numerous languages and spread all over the known world in the space of about a hundred years.”
Within a hundred years of WHAT? Not within a hundred years of Jesus’ death, but within a hundred years of the final revision around 150 or so. So, yes, by 250 they had translated into numerous languages and spread all over the known world in the space of about a hundred years.
January 27, 2010 at 11:44 pm |
Exactly what rey says… see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon for a bit of info. You obviously are oblivious to the history of your own faith. Your religion won’t tell you about it because it is incriminating. The plain and simple facts are that your holy text was written by men, for their own devices, and modified by other men for their own devices, over and over again. History, and archeology shows this to be true. If you have trouble believing this, I can get you more information.
You are quite obviously ignorant of history. Google a bit about the inquisition and the cathars, never mind Roman rule. The world you live in was created for you by those that want to control you. There is no god, and these holy texts are only created to control you, to stop you from thinking for yourself. If the god you believe in is real, where is it? Where are it’s miracles? Why was your god’s words so poorly presented and so wide open to interpretation?
If you think they are not open to interpretation, please explain why there are so very many christian sects? Why don’t any version of baptists believe the same as catholics? If your god has only one true word, how does he let so many very good meaning people get it so very wrong? How do you know you are not in the wrong sect? Does god speak to you? Do you hear voices? how?
January 27, 2010 at 11:50 pm |
BTW, they were WRITTEN in various languages, not just translated. The books were from all over the known world, not a single source. You seem to believe that early Christians were organized… they were NOT. There was no ‘church’ until the Roman empire began to become Christian. There were only pockets of believers. Read the letters of Paul and you will understand this. Sending a message from Jerusalem to Rome at that time took months… there was no organization. There was no canon until Constantine, and then it was forced on everyone by threat of death. Get over your holy rule crap. Men did all of this, there is and was no god involved.
January 27, 2010 at 3:00 pm |
If I and my fellow church members have been persecuted…..
…….and have already been bleeding and dying for the sake of the gospel for several generations……
……..and someone comes along claiming to be authoritative……
………. and has a ‘new’ version of the Gospel…….
……….with changes that alter the meaning radically…….
………..and tells us the faith for which we have been dying is heretical……..
……I don’t think it’s likely that they would receive widespread acceptance of the ‘new version’.
January 27, 2010 at 5:33 pm |
Joe, you can think as you want, but I’m betting there are a number of people who will disagree. Very close to the head of the line will be the Cathars, the Knights Templar, the Gnostics, the Jews of Jerusalem (several times), and those who fell foul of the Inquisition among others. The early Christians (errr lion food) seemed to take it well enough to join the Catholic church despite the differences in holy texts.
Your words seem to indicate that you believe there has always been only one original copy of the books of the currently accepted bible, and that one copy has never been changed. There were other books available to Constantine. He chose which he thought were the right ones. The church later ratified this by agreeing to his choices, more or less.
On top of this, your post is whimsical as the meaning in them falls foul of the problem where perspective of the interpreter determines their worth. The phrase “Alter the meaning radically” is open to interpretation. The word heretical is also dependent on interpretation.
Finally, when you are emperor it does not always matter whether there is widespread acceptance of your decisions as acceptance is won at the working end of a sword/lance if needed. It was not just a matter of ideology, in much of humanity’s past it was a matter of life and death. Even the god of the bible wiped out entire nations (men, women, children, animals) to rid the land of heresy. In this activity man have striven to equal their god(s).
History disagrees with you.
January 28, 2010 at 4:00 am |
mr z wrote:
“The phrase “Alter the meaning radically” is open to interpretation. The word heretical is also dependent on interpretation. ”
ANY word is ‘open to interpretation’ , I suppose. So you’re really not saying a lot here.
In context, we were discussing whether the text had been changed from one that did not indicate the Deity of Christ to that which did.
theBEattitude asserted, but provided no evidence, that the text had been altered on this point.
He apparently believes that Christians who suffered for an earlier faith (one that did not hold Christ as God) somehow were persuaded that the faith they and their fellows had endured untold punishment for over the course of several centuries was heretical.
According to his theory, they were further persuaded by ‘new’ versions of scripture that they should now accept the doctrine of the Deity of Christ. Which, in his narrative, they did.
mr Z wrote:
“when you are emperor it does not always matter whether there is widespread acceptance of your decisions as acceptance is won at the working end of a sword/lance if needed. It was not just a matter of ideology, in much of humanity’s past it was a matter of life and death.”
Yes, and that is my point. These believers ALREADY were persecuted to the point of death for several hundred years BEFORE this supposed event occurred.
And now we are supposed to believe that they accepted wholesale revision of their faith when threatened with death?
January 28, 2010 at 9:55 am
“In context, we were discussing whether the text had been changed from one that did not indicate the Deity of Christ to that which did.”
Wrong, ‘we’ were not talking about that, you were and thus illustrating my point about interpretation. The alterations don’t have to be that big, they only have to change enough so that the prophet becomes a son and rises from the dead after three days.
theBEattitude asserted that there are inconsistencies, not changes. And he provided proof of that.
So now you say “He apparently believes that Christians who suffered for an earlier faith (one that did not hold Christ as God) somehow were persuaded that the faith they and their fellows had endured untold punishment for over the course of several centuries was heretical.” to which I will ask what you know of the Gnostics or Zororastrians?
I don’t believe that you are very well versed in the history of your faith. It’s rather evident that you have a marked lack of understanding of the history of the world as well.
When you say “Yes, and that is my point. These believers ALREADY were persecuted to the point of death for several hundred years BEFORE this supposed event occurred.” are you implying that these persecuted christians had a bible? Are you trying to tell me that how they worshiped is how christians worship their god today? Are you saying that the same revised and inconsistent book we have today was used by the christians of the first century? really? Please be specific.
January 28, 2010 at 12:40 am |
http://www.religioustolerance.org/god_cana.htm is a reason that I have trouble with this whole thing. If genocide is a sin, how is god without sin? There is just SO much wrong with religions… sigh. Sure, you say he is god, so a double standard can work… but then you claim your god is omnipotent and omniscient, so why does your god direct men to commit sin? Why does your god need men to do anything? Why? The easiest explanation is that it is all bs created by men who want to control our lives, and until someone can prove otherwise, that is the right answer.
January 28, 2010 at 4:06 am |
Mr Z wrote:
“The easiest explanation is that it is all bs created by men who want to control our lives, and until someone can prove otherwise, that is the right answer.”
If you were going to write a Bible that would persuade the masses to submit to your authority, I doubt that you would write a narrative which showed those in authority (kings and priests of Israel) to be corrupt, sinful , in rebellion against God, foolish, vain and so forth.
More likely you would write such that those in authority were always good, wise , benevolent, etc.
Do you really think that if you were writing a text to control other men that you would write of the apostles saying such things as ‘we ought to obey God rather than men’ ?
c’mon
January 28, 2010 at 10:04 am |
Joe White,
It’s not about me, or what I would do. It’s about what was done. Apparently you have no understanding of history or what role religion played in it. You need to be quiet till you understand what Constantine and the church did.
From:http://www.gotquestions.org/constantine-bible.html
Here is the start of it – and it doesn’t have to be 100% accurate to demonstrate the situation in the 3rd and 4th centuries.
“It is very important to clarify exactly what role the Emperor Constantine played in the Council of Nicea, what the purpose for the council was, what happened at Nicea, and briefly how the canon—the Bible as we know it—was formed. Constantine was a Roman Emperor who lived from 274 to 337 A.D. He is most famous for becoming the single ruler of the Roman Empire (after deceiving and defeating Licinius, his brother-in-law) and supposedly converting to Christianity. It is debated whether or not Constantine was actually a believer (according to his confessions and understanding of the faith) or just someone trying to use the church and the faith to his own advantage. Constantine called the Council of Nicea—the first general council of the Christian church, 325 A.D.—primarily because he feared that disputes within the church would cause disorder within the empire. The dispute in mind was Arianism, which was the belief that Jesus was a created being. The famous phrase they were disputing was, “There was when He was not.” This was in reference to Jesus and was declared heretical by the council and thus resulted in the following words about Christ in the Nicene Creed: “God from true God…from the Father…not made.” It was determined by the council that Christ was homoousia, meaning, one substance with the Father.”
Now, Joe White, go away and take your failed arguments with you. Come back when you actually do understand what historians know about the people and the books that you are trying to convince us you know all about.
January 28, 2010 at 11:06 am |
mr z wrote:
“Wrong, ‘we’ were not talking about that”
Yes, ‘we’ were. theBEattitude and I. You jumped into the conversation apparently oblivious of what had gone before.
mr z wrote:
“theBEattitude asserted that there are inconsistencies, not changes. ”
Wrong. Again you need to go back and become acquainted with the whole conversation.
theBEattitude wrote:
“But this repeated quote clearly illustrates that the original version of the story did not proclaim Jesus sinless, or remotely equate him to the level of Yahweh. He was God’s virgin love child. The god/man version of the story came in later fictional embellishments.”
For someone who likes to boast of his knowledge of history, the recent history of this conversation seems to be a bit beyond your grasp.
January 29, 2010 at 12:33 pm |
He who writes the rules is never guilty.
He who is the son of the creator has his protection.
He who has the influence and power is always right.
He who never has to answer any questions, well, can never be wrong.
Food for thought.
February 21, 2010 at 9:25 pm |
[...] is that they are dead certain that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God (TM), despite it being rife with self-contradiction to the point where there are whole fields of theologians devoted to the topic of “apologizing [...]
June 18, 2010 at 2:38 pm |
This is best understood as JC using a figure of speech known as a “hyperbole”, which is defined as “is a rhetorical device in which statements are exaggerated”.
Compared to God, Jesus Christ is “not good”.
June 18, 2010 at 11:13 pm |
But he is God. This is a case of orthodox monkeying with the text in order to avoid him saying that salvation is by living a moral life. The textual variant that has him say “One thing is good, and if you would enter life, keep the commandments” (listing purely moral commandments) is the correct one. The standard reading “None is good but one, God, and if you would enter life, keep the commandments” is a childish manmade edit to avoid having Jesus undo the sacramental system that kept the priests rich.