what did Jesus really say?

Question

I'm not religious but i do accept that jesus lived and may have said somethings that could help guide people to a better way of life.
But as far as we know he didn't write anything down. Everything about him was written at a later date by other people. And these writtings were edited by men in powerful positions. And even today we know these politicion / government types have there own agenda's and can't be trusted.So no one can really say they know anything about jesus.
So would it not be better to put the bibles down and find out what he really believed before basing a religion on him?
The vatican could start by opening it's library and funding archeological digs all over the holy land.

what about pontius pilate he comes across as a nice bloke in the bible. But Archeoligists have discovered that he was ordered back to rome for excessive cruelity to the jews (He ordered the masacre of 2000 of them)
And the barabus bit. The Romans recorded much about there lives, a clay "postcard" was found at hadrians walls from a soldier asking his mother new undrewear. Yet there is not one scrap of evidence to support the claim that it was tradition to give the jews a chance to free one prisoner each year.

The bible was written by men. Men tell lies.
Oh have i proved the point of my previous question.
"God said it" What a suprise.

To Richard F
I was raised catholic, I went to catholic schools, i went to church several times a week and spent the first half of my life either reading the bible or listen to others read it

Pure i hope you dont expect me to read all of that. Muslims and jews are spawned of the same seed. If muslims really loved there god why don't they share solomens temple with the jews. Solomen built it for the same god that you worship.

Frederick J
we dont know what jesus did either, that is the point i am trying to get across

Answer 1

Apparently Kenneth G. has fallen for the junk science glossy magazine "Biblical Archaeology Review", which arrives at conclusions they use to fit into new evidence.

Professor Israel Finkelstein, archaeologist from the University of Tel Aviv, has discovered much that has given B.A.R. fits. He did an interview with publisher Hershel Shanks, which was hilarious. He had Shanks sputtering over the fact that the Israelites did not exist 10,000 years ago "and here's our evidence, which has already been published".

I guess Kenneth is one of those annual spouters of "Hey, did you hear they found the Ark last year?" Poor man.

PAULO: re Strobel. Baloney! Strobel was already a convert and set up his "interviews" with people who would provide him with answers he sought to buttress. Not once did he interview anyone from possible contradictory angles. Rubbish.

Answer 2

I share your concerns about the transmission of the gospel texts, but I have now spent many years recovering large sections of the text that were either modified or deleted and verifying many readings which seem to be largely intact. I've done this by investigating the the Syriac gospel tradition which developed outside the influence of the Catholic tradition and away from political meddling as well. There is a portion of my website devoted to the Syriac tradition if you want to dig some more, (see my profile). Anyway, by various means it is possible to find out what he really said. If particular passages interest you, drop me an email.
Not that I am a Catholic, but it is only fair to point out that anyone can access microfilms of their many manuscripts and they have also funded archaeology in Palestine over the years.

Answer 3

There is a lot writings that indicate that Jesus was more than one man, he is the amalgamation of several spiritual leaders at the time.
I believe that it's not the words of Jesus written in the Bible, but the beliefs of these spiritual mens followers. the Bible is also the accounts that were chosen by certain people at the time, and lots of other accounts were either ignored or not looked at.
There is a lot of archaeological findings (just watch history channel and discovery, etc), however, owing to political issues there has been no archaeological digs allowed in the most holy sites.

Answer 4

wow - EXCELLENT question - ty!

a possible alternative that has helped me understand jesus a lil better perhaps (i'm not into organised religion but am interested in the meanings and 'tasks' of life) is to recognise we can know little of what he said (and perhaps wonder why we look to others to answer OUR questions?). that's ok though - not many have the wisdom to take advice so what he said is almost irrelevant. what can be seen is what his story symbolises - the fight of the individual to know themselves and the world and live out the consequences of their truth despite the trials of life.

it constantly amazes me how many people hit this problem in their thirties as Jesus did (they even call 33 the christ year in certain sorts of psychotherapy because of how common it is to be 'crucified' by what you have believed and done up to that point and so get the opportunity to face your truth and transcend your background).

i believe we ALL know what is right in our hearts - Christ's story seems to illuminate the struggle to come to that knowledge in some very deeply archetypal way which can be a real comfort and inspiration...it has been for me. hope that's interesting even if not a good answer to waht you asked. =)

Answer 5

Even if "The Bible is 100% reliable & directly from the heart of God" , anything passed down through the ages and translated from language to language is bound to be changed. We all have different recollections of the same event, we are all fallible. Doesn't necessarily mean that the basic premise has not survived intact, just the minutiae will be unreliable.

Answer 6

Serious scholars sometimes speculate that there may have been a "source document," a collection of the sayings of "Jesus," taken down by his followers while he was still alive, that formed part of the basis for the gospel accounts. That's about as close as you can get.

But a close reading of the gospel texts as they stand suggests that they're composite documents, and that the character of "Jesus" actually represents a dovetailing of several distinct personalities - the typical Eastern "holy man," the Jewish upstart prophet, and the Asiatic "Dying God," whose violent death and resurrection, as a symbol of the Sun or the spirit of vegetation, was the model for the "Passion" story. Christianity as it stands is thus a syncretic religion, adopted as the state religion of Rome precisely because it conveniently incorporated the legends and rites of so many earlier pagan cults.

Answer 7

The exact words that Jesus (Yeshua in Aramaic, Jesus in Greek, and Joshua in English) said were in Aramaic and translated into Greek and from there into English. The authors of the Gospels learned from the person for whom the book was named. They are titled “The Gospel According To…”

To understand anything written, you must do it from the point of view of the author. These were Aramaic people writing to other Aramaic people. Oral history from this era is not unreliable, so what they finally wrote is very close to His words. The exact words are not as important as the meaning behind them: God is a forgiving loving parent and everyone on the Earth is a child of this Parent.

Answer 8

What he said is accurately recorded. What he did is a little less clear.

Much of Jesus's teaching was in the form of catchy sayings and stories. These were collected and written down during his lifetime. Over the years these collections of sayings were gradually expanded with accounts of Jesus's life and these eventually gave us what we know as the Gospels.

The Vatican libraries are open for scholastic research. Archaeological digs in Palestine and Israel are unlikely to yield much. Anything of any value was dug up and sold during the Ottoman era.

Answer 9

Look up the word "providence" in your dictionary. If you believe the Bible was written and/or translated absent from the divine providence of God, then you might as well put it down. The Bible is the ONLY way you will know what Jesus said.

Answer 10

Here's is an interesting fact for you. Most of Christianity's religious scriptures were destroyed by their own people.
When the Romans first adopted Christianity, they put together a council of men who discussed what should be gospel and what shouldn't. Anything that wasn't considered gospel, such as the Nostic scriptures were burnt, because the Romans didn't like the image of Jesus that it portrayed.
Over three quarters of Christianity's religious documents were destroyed, by Christians!