Who believes that Jesus's "abilities" were ulitimately exagerrated?

Question

The average human of today is far more intelligent than anyone two milleniums ago. Is it possible that back then people were too easy to fool into believing that "Jesus" was supernatural?

What if Jesus was simply a version of today's Criss Angel? Everyone knows that what CA does is fake, so what if Jesus was a con illusionist just like him?

Answer 1

I'll believe it when I see the real Jesus video from back then. Oh, wait......that's how CA does it. CA kinda represents the Anti-Christ by his illusions even though he admits it's an illusion. I would have been more impressed if Jesus was still hanging around performing miracles all of these years instead of the biblical exit and promise to return someday. Kinda reminds me of the cartoon: Frosty the Snowman. Some people might prefer the Terminator analogy.

Answer 2

Actually I think people were just gullible... and word of mouth and the grapevine-syndrome come in to play somewhere as well.

Imagine Jesus coming into a tavern or a square or any place of his choosing, comes in to greet a s|-|iteload of people, talking about a God and whatnot and dragging his philosophical and humanitarian views around. His intentions were good, but from most of the accounts I can only conclude that he was schizophrenic. He might have been more intelligent than 99% of the worlds population then and had a way with showing it. I personally don't think he ever performed miracles. That's where word-of-mouth and grapevine comes in. People talk. And sometimes people forget. So they add a little white lie to cover their forgetfulness up. Thus a story of Jesus thinking up an ingenious contraption to catch fish and bake bread in a short time span can be easily changed to being able to divide one piece of bread endlessly very magically.

The point is, he fed the hungry.

Or how a feast was nearly destroyed by the fact that the supply of wine was not there. Jesus could have pulled some behind-the-scenes strings with befriended merchants to lend him a load of wine barrels to let those people have a great time nonetheless - Jesus had a kind and giving heart, it's acceptable - and because the people didn't see what happened, they assumed he changed water into wine - how else could he have gotten such a supply of wine?

Here, the point was - Jesus made people happy.


So yes, I think his abilities were exagerrated, by the people who were awed by his ingenuity. But he was a selfless and giving man nonetheless and that is what matters.

As for his close relationship with God... I still like to think that Jesus was a sane man, but if those accounts of him actually saying that he is the true son of God are true, I can't but conclude that he is a megalomanic schizophrenic, albeit with a very big heart.

Answer 3

Erm....that's one theory I guess lol

However I highly doubt that you can compare criss angel to jesus christ. I'm christian (well....sort of. ) so maybe I'm a bit biased but the bible goes into detail about the miracles and workings of christ. Ont the other hand I'm also a strong believer that many things in the bible were biased themselves since it was written by human beings. Because of that, and the fact that nothing man made and translated a billion times over several centuries is ever purely truth and fact, anything is possible really. That's what faith is all about- you choose what you believe in or what path is right for you. If you don't believe in god well that's an option as well.
ANYTHING about ANYONE in any religion could be false. There's simply no way to prove that something or someone that ancient was exactly what we perceive it to be, or what we're told it was.

Personally, I don't believe jesus' abilities were exaggerated but I don't put full confidence in all those shitty red words in the bible that are supposed to "quote" him either....

Answer 4

I believe it was all over-exagerrated, but I don't think he was a con. I believe people just interpreted it oddly. Ya gotta know about history to know this. In those days, the "Important" people got wine while the less important got water. I believe Jesus got wine and when the rest got water, he said, (paraphrasing of course) "Hey, buddy, we are all equally important. Segregation is crap." And the rest got served wine since they held Jesus in high reguard. Thus, turning water into wine.
Fishing was a person's livlihood then. No fish, no eat, no money, DIE, bascally. Fishermen built underwater docks that were very close to the surface of the water to help with spawning. It was more than taboo to walk across such a dock without express permission from the dock owner. To say Jesus was walking on water was to say he had the cojones to walk on someone else's dock.
Again, I don't think it was a con, just all highly overexaggerated.

Answer 5

You say, that The average human of today is far more intelligent than anyone two milleniums ago. And maybe to some degree you have a point, but certainly there were people them days who were far cleverer than people of today.

Jesus remember was I AM. He is God.
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

You have a spirit as does everyone.

Jesus said God is Spirit.

To worship God you must be born of His Holy Spirit.

That is what Jesus meant when He said you must be born again.

Answer 6

You are flat wrong and chauvinist in saying that the average 21st century human is smarter than forebears of 2000 years ago. Might be the other way around considering the achievements of the early civilizations. About the miracles of Jesus, Thomas Jefferson rewrote the new testament without the miracles. What was left was quite an impressive personality, Jesus. Christianity won't crumble without smoke and mirrors. God might even speak through you once in a while. In Christ's case, it was every time he opened his mouth. Thomas Jefferson thought so.

Answer 7

First, the average human today is no more intelligent than those of two millenia ago. We may be more sophisticated in some areas, and we are more technologically advanced, but neither of those equate to being more intelligent.

Next, people of two millenia ago were just as wary (and just as gullible) as people of today. Con artists were routinely caught, although the penalties were a bit more severe. False prophets were punished by death (by stoning). Under those circumstances, I think Criss Angel would probably take up farming.

To the heart of your question, I would have to ask what Jesus and the disciples had to gain by conning people. None of them ended up rich, and most ended up being killed by torture.

None of this, of course, answers the question of Jesus' divinity. You didn't ask that.

But if Jesus and the disciples were con artists, they had to be both very smart (to pull it off) and amazingly stupid (to give up most worldly comforts, and in at least one case, considerable wealth) for the opportunity to wander the countryside, live as vagrants, and end up dead by torture.

Answer 8

Jesus is the I am! Has always been and always will be! His fight is already won as seen in the bible. Nothing was exaggerrated Too many people saw and recorded it. All different intrepretations but the same story. We all need to pray from the victory to bring others to christ. Read Psalms 1:1 , we are called to be REAL, and not walk, then slow down, then sit down with the sinners and mockers of Jesus. We must plow through to do God's work and use our spiritual gifts he has given us.

Answer 9

What makes you think we are so highly advanced today?
Intelligent?
Why do the people that use light bulbs by flicking a switch not know how to invent them even though it has already been invented?
Why do people need an "expert" to tell them who they themselves are?
Why do people think that governments and corporations care if they live or die?
Why does the media lie to us for our own protection?

Why do you think you are only a body and that your awareness and feelings are only an accidental circumstance of the machinery that you inhabit?
Do you think that is all there is?

Have you ever thought that religions and having those who kill Jesus or anyone else that talks majestically are really going to turn around and tell you truth?

Answer 10

What should alert us to wholesale fakery here is that practically all the events of Jesus’s supposed life appear in the lives of mythical figures of far more ancient origin. Whether we speak of miraculous birth, prodigious youth, miracles or wondrous healings – all such 'signs' had been ascribed to other gods, centuries before any Jewish holy man strolled about. Jesus’s supposed utterances and wisdom statements are equally common place, being variously drawn from Jewish scripture, neo-Platonic philosophy or commentaries made by Stoic and Cynic sages.