"I'm trying to construct a theology that speaks differently about Jesus..."?

Question

"Conventional doctrines say Jesus saved the world by dying. But the people who killed Jesus hated him. It's wrong to confuse hate with love. This theology raises profound moral questions for me."

From the forward to "Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and The Search for What Saves Us"

Has anybody else read this book?

http://books.google.com/books?id=xZzx2oX_pPQC&dq=proverbs+of+ashes&pg=PP1&ots=oY74ibgqcR&sig=QgPtjmNtQMakrFeyAMXAcINu53s&prev=http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGIH_enUS245US245&q=Proverbs+of+ashes&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail&hl=en#PPP1,M1

Answer 1

She makes several salient points, however, because of her own experiences, one has to question her findings, since of course she will have associated her own pain with her faith.

There are many reasons why people search outside of conventional theologies in order to find sense to their pain.

Answer 2

Well if you read the original Teachings of Jesus (Yeshua) the Gospel of the Nazirenes it does not speak like this. It is following Jesuses teachings that qualifies one for heaven. This will save one from hell. Believing means following. The Essenes are the original followers of Jesus they where of a Jewish sect that Jesus followed. It al makes sense. Jesus originally taught karma reincarnation, vegetarianism and no one goes to hell eternally. google gospelofthenazirenes. I think they are about $20.00 to purchase. It is so worth it because then Jesus actually makes sense. The bible has been changed by King Constantine, so there is much to question that is why so may sects of Christianity. They don't know what he actually said.

Answer 3

I have not read the book (obviously), Jack B answer is interesting.

When I think on myown about Jesus death especially, and doing that without prejudice I would say, I am always surprise that God would kill Jesus infront of the idol believer.
I can never understand, how dare God (father in Christian's) killed Jesus - his own son (according to Christianity), by crossed and nailing him .To me that is against God Name, The Almighty the Most Powerful, The Most Loving, The Most Caring, The Gracious, etc.

God is the place we all ask for power, strength, how come Jesus (as God -according to C) allowed himself as a weak and defeated , for whatever reason.
And how come God Father humiliate Himself by showing that He could not help or had no power against his "lover's" enemy.

Why God made Moses, Noah, Lot, Josef all of them even Muhammad at the end winning the "battle"against their enemy. , yet Jesus lost.

Is that means that we have to give in to our enemy to be saved and sit in heaven??

I always question myself about the "story" of the death of Jesus.
I cant believe that God who Loves Jesus would "violate" him as a token for heaven .Does not make sense.
Whoever wrote the story missed some essence in this paragraph.

That's what I think.

Answer 4

why do you think you need to construct a theology about Jesus that is different- He loved us enough to die on the cross for EVERYONE, including that ones that killed Him. What is so confusion for you? People hate Jesus and Jesus still loves them. It was not the nails that kept Him on the cross, if was His love.

Answer 5

Why make complicated what God has made simple?

"Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. "

Acts 2:22-24

Answer 6

I have not read the book, but I like Ayn Rand's never-completed conjecture on Jesus, "Jesus, the unbowed, the defiant."

See, Rand saw Jesus's life, as indeed Rand would, as one long act of defiance; his life was a battle of will, against his culture, his fellow man, against God himself. Rather than submit or abdicate a bit of his personal will, he allowed himself to be killed, not to save man from sin, but to show man there was no "sin", so long as man respected himself, and his fellow man. Personal choice and personal destiny is viewed by Rand as marking the entirety of Jesus's life, and his teaching was to free man from the very shackles of the religion that first he came from(Judaism), and which then embraced him(Christianity).

Now, Rand of course did not view Jesus as the son of God, but she wanted to recast his life, and spent considerable effort on the project, before eventually giving it up, although excerpts of it have been published over the years. Even Jesus's tears in the garden are viewed by Rand as Jesus pleading for his autonomy to God, and in the end choosing death rather than submission. His final cry to God as he hung on the cross, the famous, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?", is seen as the last bit of defiance, a son throwing in his father's face the unreasonableness of the father's dictatorialism: the father has lost his most precious possession, his son, through his intransigence.

"Jesus, the unbowed, the defiant", is a lesson of passive resistance, the marking of a true path for the liberation of the soul. Despite what both God and man may do to one, independence, from man, God, religion, and sin, are one's most precious inheritance.

Answer 7

Well it is about God's love for man and man's hatred for God. It is about God's hatred of sin and man's love for sin. Nothing is contradictory about that.

Answer 8

the bible says "while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" he died for all of us even the ones crucifiing him. "greater love has no man, than to , lay his life down for a friend"

Answer 9

How do you "murder" someone who claims they never died, but will live forever.

Answer 10

there is no other way to speak of jesus.
he is the way
the way to heaven