to Christians;Do you have any words that you know for certain, 100%, were spoken by Jesus Christ?

Question

or honestly that there were no words that could be traced authentically to Jesus, and that the language he had spoken had been forever lost.

Answer 1

A few years ago, there was a seminar (the Jesus Seminar) of prominent new testament scholars who tried, by reading the four gospels side by side, to determine which stories and sayings were authentic. They probably made some headway, though I think it's difficult to say with any certainty. A famous disconnect, for instance, would be Jesus on the Cross in the Gospel of Luke asking, in Aramaic, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" In contradistinction, the end of the Gospel of John has Jesus on the cross saying 'It is finished'. The authors of our accounts are writing from between 50 and 100 years after the death of Jesus, which the letters of Paul are only about 20 years after the death of Jesus. If you want scripture that's probably closer to Jesus than that in the Gospels, you'll have to go to Paul's Epistles. Do we know what Jesus said? Probably not. I tend to think it was a fairly radical message though for us to be still discussing it today.

Answer 2

Jesus' normal language was Aramaic, and it is not a lost language. But His words were written by the Apostles in Greek because that was the language of the day.

That is one of the reasons that God picked this time to bring His Son into the world, because it was a time when a single language was known by everybody, even though they may have spoke other languages.

I believe the words in the Bible attributed to Jesus are thought for thought what Jesus spoke when He was alive.

Sounds like some are trying to use logic in determining which words were the words of Christ. Is it logical that He would have said this? Who do we think we are to question what Jesus did or did not say.

Are there any words attributed to Jesus that are contrary to His character and nature? If not, we should accept them.

grace2u

Answer 3

I'm not a Christian, but there are some words in the Gospels that I think we can say are authentically words he spoke. We can never be 100% sure, but we can say "he probably said this." Among the sayings he probably actually said are the ones that are quoted in Aramaic, such as when he said on the cross in Aramaic, "My God my God why have you forsaken me?" The clue is that this does not sound like something a later Christian would make up. In fact, the later Gospels omit this. But Mark, the earliest Gospel, has Jesus saying this.

Another such phrase is the one in Mark where Jesus says that some in this generation will not pass away before the coming of the Kingdom of God. Again, this does not sound like something that a later Christian would put in his mouth, because it is problematic for the Christian faith, since the Kingdom did not come in that generation, at least not in any visible way.

If words were attested by several sources, including our earliest sources, and if it sounds like something that a 1st century Galilean Jewish man might really have said, then we can put more weight on those words.

It's the words that are not attested in our earliest sources, but which get written later, and which do not sound like something that the real Jesus would have said, that is questionable. Many of the words in the later Gospels reflect later Christian theology, and we can assume that these are not authentic.

Answer 4

You are correct on all points except the last.

Hebrew is alive and well and has never been lost. Greek is also about the same and that is the language that the Gospels were written in. If Jesus was educated, he probably spoke both of those languages as well as Aramaic.

Perhaps it is Aramaic that you mean as being lost forever. (It isn't by the way, some Jewish prayers are in Aramaic.)

Answer 5

Every, single word cited in the Bible as being spoken by Jesus Christ are His Words.

Answer 6

*raises hand*
Is this a trick question?
;-)
OK, well, I believe He actually said "Love one another", not only because it says so in the Bible, and not only because I believe it fits in with His character as I know it, but because John is reported to have repeated these words more than any other...indeed, one historian tells us that, when John was so old he had to be carried into his church, he would say, "love one another, for if this alone is done, it is enough".
Not only that, it makes uncommon good sense.
Unfortunately, I can't remember where I read this offhand....I'll remember after I've signed off and gone to bed tonight, though, gaurantee it.

Answer 7

I think those who believe in Jesus will believe that the Word of God, the Bible, is proof positive of the life of Christ. His Words are recorded in the 4 gospels by not only those who loved him but by those who did not. When Christ died on the cross His last words, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani" from Mark 15.34. were Prophesied in Psalm 22. 1 hundreds of years before the actual death of Christ. What are the chances of someone saying your last words hundreds of years before you were even born. That is knowledge only God knows. However, some people will believe in God's Word and others will not believe in God even if He came into their room and spoke to them face to face. The language of Jesus is a language that many Bible scholars have studied, so it is not forgotten.

Answer 8

The letters by Peter, James and Paul all quote thoughts that Jesus expressed.
Were they delirious?
The language Jesus spoke is also spoken today.
Nothing has been lost.
Why do you wish to see conspiracy in everything?

Answer 9

Jesus words are recorded for us in the books of Mathew, John, Luke and Mark.
Just because these men recorded them doesn't mean than Jesus didn't say them.
Men today have sectaries type out on to paper their thoughts and words. We do not question their source because someone else put it on paper.

Answer 10

Wrong again!
Jesus spoke Aramaic..and it's definitely not lost forever.
If you can't trace any biblical word to Jesus, you will have to trace it to someone else...yes?
The teachings of Jesus are too compact to be traced to different people...if Jesus never lived as you want to suggest, you will have to trace his teachings to another man in That era.