Monday, April 28, 2008

The Missing Gospel?

          Why didn't Jesus write a book?

                       

Allow me to advocate for the devilish questions surfacing now and again in minds ruled by logic.  Only my opinion, encouraging dialogue:

If I were the Son of God Himself come to earth with an important message, would I leave it to chance that my friends and contemporaries would get it right?  Why wouldn't I scribe my messages down for the ages of people I was trying to reach, thereby insuring its accuracy?  Why, I ask, didn't the historical Jesus, the Christ, put His very advanced new notions to paper, like any genius or prophet of that time?

Think of it - God, the Creator of All in the Christian ethic, decides it's time to visit His most beloved creations with the "good news" that the God of the Jews is actually a living God, a loving Father, a forgiving deity waiting only for the acceptance of His children - quite contrary to the vengeful, judging, cold dry God of what we now call the Old Testament.  So, as we've come to know it, He appears on earth in the guise of His only Son, and grew as any child would, at the feet of his parents and little friends, a good and obedient Jewish boy, yet somehow knowing He was set apart.  For wouldn't God, in human form, be influenced by that form?  Wouldn't He be ruled by human emotion and foibles?  I'm not sure.  I've come to think He was 100% human, 100% divine, and aware of both living within Him.  Very difficult to grasp. 

Surely God the young earth-child named Jesus would feel joy and sorrow, cry when He skinned His knee, laugh at something funny or feel hurt by the usual boyhood bullying.  Being raised a good, devout Jew, Our Lord would be held to the restrictions of that faith by His parents, and expected to obey them.  I've no doubt He did, most of the time.  But all through His childhood and young adulthood He surely would've felt the tug of that divine mission He started out on, planned and put into action.  How would that have affected His earthly life?  Was He a hard man to get to know, at say, 20?  Why did He never talk of His early life to His friends, His disciples?  Was He not entrusting them to relate His views accurately?  Did He not believe people in ages to come would be interested in how He lead His life before becoming a self-proclaimed preacher, then prophet?  And how did He keep the secret of His true identity for so long? 

With such an awesome message to bring so many, why did Jesus leave it to others to remember His teachings, and pass them on intact, accurately?  The New Testament seems our only record of this Man, yet nowhere in those pages does He speak.  His ideas, thoughts, sermons, everything He did or said - all left to heresay by others.  Not once does Our Lord speak in the Bible.  Every word He may've uttered comes to us through another.  People with motives perhaps different from their peers.  Jesus seemed to be very confident of the great faith His words and deeds would instill low these 2,000 years later.  Why?  Was it His divinity that inured it so strongly in His mind?  A human mind!  For in human guise he possessed all our frailties, weaknesses, emotions and needs, yet doing battle with the most base of these would have been His much-challenged divinity - being the Son of God.  Jesus held this secret, according to Biblical record, for all His life, almost to the end of it.  When He did reveal His true identity, He started the beginning of the end - or as many see it, the fulfillment of the prophecy that a Messiah would come to save the Jews from bondage by the self-sacrafice He would make.  Imagine what it was like when He made this proclamation!  

I sometimes wonder why it was that particular historical period God decided it was time to walk amonst us, and chosing His guise I think make alot of sense.  Surely He couldn't appear as Himself - but as a man like any other, who speaks of new ideas, new and better, kinder ways to look at one another, I can see how people were drawn to Him.  Then, in absolute silence and with no public explanation, He offered up His life and it was taken in the cruel manner and custom of the day.  Many who believed in His new ways turned against Him.  

The message of Jesus I believe was a very basic one, that His Father is connected to us all, that He loves and cares for us, that we can come to Him in need and be heard, always be welcomed, always forgiven, always loved.  Yet at that time in history such ideas were very radical to the Jews, and of course traitorous to the Romans, in political power.  It's a message of great import - surely it must be if God Himself would bring it to us as His own Son.  

So why didn't Jesus write it down Himself? 

Was Christ Jesus aware of future events the way He would've been as God, Creator of All?  Would coming into human form subtract any part of your divinity from you, if you were a true god?  How did the two co-exist in one man? 

From Biblical record we know Jesus was many times confused and hurt.  He considered Himself a lone voice.  Alone and apart.  Heavy-laden with His mission.  Given to temptations yet able to fight them more ably than most.  Such import to be left to others to record is given to the winds of chance!  And the gospel writers themselves, all contradicting each other, then the Ages of Man in the Church taking out and re-arranging this Testament, then all the mis-translations ... but Jesus felt confident to leave His great message to the vagaries of human-kind, no matter how contradictory.  Why? 

These questions take nothing from one's love of the Lord, for whatever reason and in whatever fashion.  It's just something I wondered ...

 

 

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

good question
hugs
Sherry

Anonymous said...

You're right, Jesus was 100% human and 100% divine!  I think Jesus knew there was no need for him to write it all down as others would, under the direction and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  As to the time in which he came, I think that was preordained.  To hang upon a tree was to be totally accursed.  That is what the Romans did to him.  And while He bore every sin ever committed on that cross, he was accursed as God the Father at one point couldn't even look upon him.  As to what folks call the contradictions in the gospels, I see them as different views from different vantage points of the same event.  One also must consider that each gospel not only had a different author, but a different audience in mind when it was written.  And a different attrtibute of Christ it was portraying.  I also agree there is never any sin in sincere, humble thought and wondering.  As long as we don't go to the "world" or those against Christ for the answers.  

Great entry!!

Barbara

Anonymous said...

Hey Starlady, I have no Idea! Good question though. As long as they are looking out for me, I am happy! ;-) Love Pam xx

Anonymous said...

Interesting.  I think it is the same reason why we can't find Noah's Ark, or the Ark of the Convenant.  There are some things that just aren't supposed to be.  If Jesus wrote a book I think it would be picked apart.  Yes, other geniuses and prophets wrote at that time, and other times, but Jesus had another mission.  I think it has turned out the way it is supposed to be.  We believe in Jesus by faith through the writers and then we KNOW He exists because HE makes sense in our own lives.  I don't know if I am making sense.  I am trying to.  Love you, my dearest, Cateri!  Love, your Maire xox
http://journals.aol.com/valphish/ThereisaSeason

Anonymous said...

It does defy logic...Seeing as the actual writing are left to make you wonder how much was changed and interpeted in the view of the writer...(Hugs) Indigo

Anonymous said...

Some conspiracy theorists argue he did but like many of the early gospels the early church "chose" the four we know today to simplify and solidify 'the church'.

To me the life of Jesus was never about writing a manual but rather living a life. I wouldn't call it a missing gospel more a living gospel. Every morning is the gift of a blank page and our choice as to how the chapter ends.

Caregivingly Yours, Patrick
http://journals.aol.com/daddyleer/CaregivinglyYours/

http://lairofcachalot.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

hmmmm? interesting comment.

it sounds like you are talking about on-the-job training. that didn't work too well with bush.

Anonymous said...

luddie, the comment below is in reply to the comment you put on my blog. thanks for that.

Anonymous said...

when i read the gospel for the first time i knew jesus was far ahead of his time. in fact, i knew he was far ahead of our time.

so the answer would be that he did not need to write his own book. his apostles did a fine job.

Anonymous said...

Comment from scottsoperson Entry Author | Email scottsoperson
4/29/08 3:26 PM
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oil is not abundant in every country. it is most abundant by far in the middle east which is why the middle east controls the price of oil worldwide.
#1 Comment from luddie343 | Email luddie343
4/29/08 1:40 AM
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However you feel about oil - which is abdundant in every country on the planet since it is composed of ancient biomass and we all have it, the fact I believe is that an American presence will remain in Iraq for at least 20 yrs.  No matter who buys the office of President.  CATHY

Anonymous said...

i've read some of the missing gospels. the writers sort of believed in a very complicated multi-god system. they did not believe in one God. in other words, they tried to get christianity to fit around Greek multi-god system. it didn't work. poorly written fantasy. sorry.

i don't believe the gospel is fantasy and i don't think it is poorly written.

Anonymous said...

hmmmmm

Anonymous said...

His apostles who wrote the accounts of his life did the job well.  Even though each was written from his own personal view, yet all four gospels agree with one another in all essential elements.  What great witness than that?
Lori

Anonymous said...

I have to agree with many of your other comments...I think the Apostles did a fine job.  I can tell you honestly, I had never thought of this before reading your entry.  You always make me think!!!  (that's good)
Lisa
xx