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Who Was Jesus Christ?
Vagabond
Explorer
First and foremost, I am sorry if this question came up on this forum a million and a half times before me. I can imagine that it did, since you know, Jesus is a pretty popular guy and all. Anywho...
Who is Jesus to you? I've met many people who believe he was the son of God, many who believe he was a fraud, many who believed he was enlightened (either from learning buddhism or not), and a select few who believe that he never existed and is just a fictional character.
Me personally...I don't know what to believe. I guess I believe he was a real person, probably not "the son of God", how many Christians interpret that. But, I guess he definitely could've been a man of greater power that we can't necessarily fathom as human beings. Not sure, I wasn't there, lol. Let me know what you think.
Who is Jesus to you? I've met many people who believe he was the son of God, many who believe he was a fraud, many who believed he was enlightened (either from learning buddhism or not), and a select few who believe that he never existed and is just a fictional character.
Me personally...I don't know what to believe. I guess I believe he was a real person, probably not "the son of God", how many Christians interpret that. But, I guess he definitely could've been a man of greater power that we can't necessarily fathom as human beings. Not sure, I wasn't there, lol. Let me know what you think.
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Comments
there's enough of them. they're everywhere.
jesus christ was ahead of his time, thus they killed him Lol.
the funny thing is people look at only his miracles. when jesus asserted to love everyone as your brother/sister is the greatest miracle.
honestly, i feel bad for the guy. they totally hijacked his message and turned it into politics.
his message was love. so simple. so honest.
and do u believe he claimed to be the son of God?
and if yes, do u believe he truly believed that?
god. so that is our sin. when we repent we learn to become more simple and by our willingness to die, we gain the world.
so the story of jesus christ is about a man awakening to his divine nature, which we all are.
we are all children of god. since god "created" the universe, everything is god.
it doesn't matter if he believed it or not. even jesus doubted god. last minutes prior to his death jesus yells out WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME. the guy had great doubt.
when you get down to it, the christian message is the same message everyone else talks about. it's almost boring.
it's all about love and awakening to your true nature. call it enlightenment. call it gnosis. it's all the same idea.
now many people are going to throw rocks at me. that's fine this is just my opinion.
christians call it spirit. buddhists call it being. it's all the same idea.
jesus spoke about the kingdom of heaven. and people just ran nuts with that concept. the kingdom of heaven is no different than nirvana. WHICH IS HERE RIGHT NOW. not in some distant future or place.
it doesn't even matter if jesus christ was a real person or not. he could just be a symbolic representation TO remind us of our highest potential. to remind us that we are divinity. we are god manifest.
god being the infinite potential and infinite expression. we are made in "his" image. Lol.
blasphemy? probably, but hell the christians can't even read the gospel of thomas and understand it.
it is clearly pointing to non duality. MEH
As regarding to the question about whether Jesus existed, I can only say that historians have never found any proof (though proof of a lot of other stuff from the period and way earlier is well known and found all the time). The safest bet - according to one of my country's best historians of religion who I happen to know (not subjectively best, she actually have the highest graded paper) - told me, that the most popular theory in the field is, that the character of Jesus is gathered from stories about different preachers. As today it was not uncommon for someone to claim to be The Savior.
I don't disagree with this, but you have to admit that this is a written statement, and as such it takes the conditional form, and in the conditional form, time exists, ergo we are still away from heaven/nirvana. When we reach this place, I suspect all writing, speech, thought, growth, etc. will be at an end.
I dont think we should fight the process of growth as much as so many Buddhist do. Many Buddhist seem preoccupied with stopping the flow of time and beating themselves into a state of "nowness". Personally, I see great usefulness in time and the conditioned state. It enables us to grow and to help the Other grow in ways which are critical. In the end of it all, one might say that the the true "Value" of it all did not come from enlightenment/nirvana/heaven but from the process which was taking us there, all the time, no matter how little or hard we tried.
Our only task is to wake up to that value, and there's no better place or time to start than now.
May All Beings Be Peaceful,
Kunga
It seems to have a relatively balanced view of whether or not Jesus existed.
I don't KNOW about the "magic" aspects of Jesus -- such as the miracles attributed to him in the New Testament. Just as I don't KNOW if during enlightenment Buddha was spiritually uplifted and (to coin a phrase) saw all there is in eternity.
So I look at the teachings of Buddha and ask myself is there wisdom there that is worth incorporating into my life. And for me the answer is -- most definitely.
In the same way, I look at the teaching of Jesus and ask myself is there wisdom there that is worth incorporating into my life. And again, for me the answer is -- most definitely.
What bothers me about the Bible is the same thing that bothered Thomas Jefferson about it. I won't even get into the Old Testament. But in the New Testament, in the way it was written it could easily have been written by his followers for the purpose of glorifying Jesus, rather than being an accurate historical document. But, I'll keep an open mind. You may want to check out the "Jefferson Bible". Jefferson, as I mentioned, had doubts about the validity of all that was written in the New Testament. He composed a very short book which (as summarized by Wikipedia): "The Jefferson Bible, or The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth as it is formally titled, was Thomas Jefferson's effort to extract the doctrine of Jesus by removing sections of the New Testament containing supernatural aspects as well as perceived misinterpretations he believed had been added by the Four Evangelists." I'm not saying that Jefferson was totally successful in his effort, but his attempt is interesting.
I'm not going to get into my personal beliefs about Christianity here because this is a Buddhist forum. But I'll just summarize by saying that when I look at the words of any man -- Buddha, Jesus, whomever -- what I look at is the level of wisdom. And certainly, both Buddha and Jesus provided the world with a concept of a moral code that is admirable.
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Vagabond -- For my money, this is a pretty important point. If you don't know what to believe, what makes you believe you have to believe at all?
Beliefs all depend on the past and yet the past cannot be grasped or held or revised so belief amounts to relying on the unreliable. I'm not trying to be philosophically kool ... just trying to suggest that anyone might benefit from examining the beliefs and disbeliefs they embrace.
As the Buddha said in the Dhammapada (paraphrasing), purity and impurity depend on oneself, noone can purify another. That makes a lot more sense to me. Which is in part why I rejected Christianity long ago. If such a man really existed (which is itself uncertain), it's possible he claimed this. It's possible.
buried there.
Maybe he ressurected and went to japan from kahmir.
Have you read "Jesus: The Lost Years" ? It's slightly different in that I think the idea is he went east before being crucified.
Osho certainly stood by the survival of the crucifiction theory, saying that he died on the cross was a Roman conspiracy.
If that was found to be true (but it won't) I would have a good chuckle.
I think the "Son of God" thing, along with the Resurrection, was made up afterwards at some point, to create or justify this religion. Does anyone know--did the Gnostic Christians believe Jesus was the Son of God?
No.
This was incorporated into Religious Dogma by the Catholic council in around 400AD. (Not that I was there, but having been a RC in a "past Life" it's amazing what you're taught.....) later the conclusion that Mary was a Virgin also had to be incorporated, because fornication was seen as the perpetuation of Original Sin. So she could never have possibly known a man, (thus begetting a son, Jesus, ... as Son of God, he could not possibly have been conceived in the conventional sense, because this would have made him guilty of original Sin!) so she was declared blessed amongst women and free of original Sin.
This is the correct meaning of the Immaculate Conception.
She is the Immaculate Conception, not Jesus. You could. But there are still caveats....
As far as resurrection and sent by God its a different can of worms. Im not even talking about that. There was a previous topic about this Jesus in Kashmir stuff and this "scholar" who found the tomb also believes in Planet X (Niburu), ancient aliens (Annunaki) and that Ancient Egyptians had helicopters.
There were quite a few other related silliness with other scholars. I believe there is as much evidence that he went to Kashmir as there is that he went to Mars.
I think the truth is that he was probably buried somewhere near Jerusalem and who knows if we will ever find it or if there is anything left to find.
@Ric I'm still agnostic on the Kashmir issue.
A 'bet'.
@Dakini:
That went out in 1020AD
what Jesus did is similar to the essence of the Vajrayana Bodhisatva, who saves others via his highly developed paramis
if we believe a Mahayana Bodhisatva's role is to impart the emptiness (sunyata) teachings in order to save all sentient beings, we are mistaken
this would the Mahayana Bodhisatva just the imparter of the Hinayana Path this is just Hinayana or "self-salvation"
today's Christian religion is exactly what Jesus intended it to be, that is, for the most part, for most devotees, salvation via faith
I don't know.
http://www.spiritual-wholeness.org/faqs/reincgen.htm
Personally, I think Christianity would be much better off just sticking with the Jefferson Bible — a collection of extracts from the New Testament — and getting rid of all that Old Testament, grumpy God business, not to mention most of the writings of Paul. (Thomas Jefferson went so far as to deem him "the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.")
This is your Moderator speaking , OK?
Don't Messi with me.....
Springtime animal sacrifice accompanied by the belief that the spirit of the animal will ascend to heaven and watch over the tribe is a practice stretching back aeons in time. Coincidence?