From: sieferme@milton.u.washington.edu (Eric Sieferman)
Subject: Re: LORD, LIAR, OR LUNATIC?
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 20:08:55 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.185419.22227@meaddata.com> joyce@meaddata.com  writes:
>Ok, everyone, due to the numerous responses to my post, I've changed
>my mind and decided to re-visit this newsgroup. Responses also do not
>need to be e-mailed to me, I just find that I'm repeating myself a lot
>in responding to people individually. 
 
C'mon, I bet you secretly love repeating yourself.

>So I've decided to save myself
>time and just post and also to explain the arguments I have obtained
>in greater depth than I have in my previous posting.
>
>LORD, LIAR, OR LUNATIC?

Geez, another multiple choice question ...

(some drivel deleted)
>To Jesus, who men and women believed him to be was of fundamental
>importance. To say what Jesus said and to claim what he claimed about
>himself, one couldn't conclude he was just a good moral man or
>prophet. That alternative isn't open to an individual,and Jesus never
>intended it to be. 
>
>C.S. Lewis, who was a professor at Cambridge University and once an
>agnostic,
(only to become a looney)
>understood this issue clearly. He writes: "I am
>trying here 
>to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people
often >say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher,
>but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must
>not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus
>said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic
>-- on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he
>would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man
>was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse."

Jesus probably had good and bad days, just like the rest of us
humans.  Some days he was on top of his game and said colorful
and insightful things; other days he babbled balderdash.
Some days my computer programs work wonderfully; other days
it's back to Bomb City and Bugville.  Same principle.

>Then Lewis adds: "You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him
>and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord
>and God. But let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about
>His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He
>did not intend to."

Making moral pronouncements like "love one another" is not especially
novel; lots of teachers have said the same thing.  Claiming to
be a god, OTOH, is a much rarer activity.  It could be expected
that if this was Jesus' central message, or the key belief of
his early disciples, then it would appear frequently and
unambiguously in the NT.  Sorta like, "Hey.  I'm God.  Really.
Don't be confused.  I'm really and truly God.  This is the
most important thing about me.  I've said it before, and I'll
say it again:  I'm God".  Yet, the bulk of text in the NT
concerns (a) moral values and ethical standards, and
(b) tantalizing tidbits about salvation, afterlife, etc.
The claims of Jesus's goddiness seldom appear in the gospels,
and then very vaguely.  Almost as if the divinity thing was
added as an afterthought (hint).
 
>Jesus claimed to be God. He didn't leave any other option open. His
>claim must be either true or false, so it is something that should be
>given serious consideration. Jesus' question to his disciples, "But
>who do you say that I am?" has several alternatives.
>
>First, consider that his claim to be God was false. If it was false,
>then we have two and only two alternatives. He either knew it was
>false or he didn't know it was false. We will consider each one
>separately and examine the evidence.
>
>WAS HE A LIAR?
>
>If, when Jesus made his claims, he knew that he was not God, then he
>was lying and deliberately deceiving his followers. But if he was a
>liar, then he was also a hypocrite because he told others to be
>honest, whatever the cost, while he himself taught and lived a
>colossal lie. More than that, he was a demon, because he told others
>to trust him for their eternal destiny. If he couldn't back up his
>claims and knew it, then he was unspeakably evil. Last, he would also
>be a fool because it was his claims to being God that led to his
>crucifixion. 

Perhaps he lied on purpose to show that fallible, sinful human beings
can still attain great things, including a heaven.  Or maybe not.
I don't remember Jesus ever claiming that he never made a mistake.

>Many will say that Jesus was a good moral teacher. Let's be realistic.
>How could he be a great moral teacher and knowingly mislead people at
>the most important point of his teaching -- his own identity?

The same way Einstein developed staggeringly original theories
while having trouble with his personal finances.

>Elsewhere Schaff gives convincing argument against Christ being a
>liar: "How, in the name of logic, common sense, and experience, could
>an impostor -- that is a deceitful, selfish, depraved man -- have
>invented, and consistently maintained from the beginning to end, the
>purest and noblest character known in history with the most perfect
>air of truth and reality? How could he have conceived and successfully
>carried out a plan of unparalleled beneficence, moral magnitude, and
>sublimity, and sacrificed his own life for it, in the face of the
>strongest prejudices of his people and age?"

Would he still thing so highly of Jesus if he (Jesus) had endured
the same journalistic scrutiny during his life that modern
political candidates face?

>If Jesus wanted to get people to follow him and believe in him as God,
>why did he go to the Jewish nation? Why go as a Nazarene carpenter to
>a country so small in size and population and so thoroughly adhering
>to the undivided unity of God? Why didn't he go to Egypt or, even
>more, to Greece, where they believed in various gods and various
>manifestations of them?
>
>Someone who lived as Jesus lived, taught as Jesus taught, and died as
>Jesus died could not have been a liar. What other alternatives are there?

He was misquoted.

>
>--------------To be continued--------------------------------------
>

Please.  Spare us.

-- 
| Eric Sieferman            |    sieferme@u.washington.edu          |
| U. of W., M.C.I.S.        |    (206) 685-3104                     |