Jesus actually committed suicide
October 5, 2007 by Luci
If Jesus asked Judas to betray him, as this new Judas gospel indicates, doesn’t that mean Jesus basically committed suicide?
My take on this is sociological. One cannot deny the impact of Christianity on world history, and on our current political climate. I’d argue that Christianity has been perverted by the Taliban wing of the religion; every faith has such a wing, and lately, it seems those wings have come to enjoy frightening prominence. Again, however, this is a debate for another time.
But consider this: according to this newly revealed gospel, Jesus asked Judas to betray him so Jesus could leave the physical realm and return to the spiritual realm. This turns on its head the old convention that Judas was a scumbag betrayer, and that Jesus was murdered. Jesus wanted to die, it seems, and went to a trusted friend to help him find that desired death.
Isn’t that suicide by any definition?
Or even worse:
If Jesus, the father and the HS are three gods in one and the father killed Jesus, then in a sense he killed himself as the three are one.
He thus killed himself as well as commit a murder.
It is irrelevant, but Jesus was actually quite a sinner and hypocrite according to the bible. This is really nothing new, but thank you for expanding on that for us.
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If your take on the issue is sociological, please apply some of the basic rules of sociology first.
There are no historical records from that time that indicate whether Jesus ever existed, and the newly discovered “gospel of Judas” is no exception to that rule.
Until we have ascertained his existence, it doesn’t make any sense to discuss what Jesus did or didn’t. Questions such as “did he commit suicide or was he killed?” is irrelevant as long as we don’t know the answer to “did he exist?”
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This is the kind of pedantic nit picking I usually associate with the “Taliban” wing of Christianity.
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“This is the kind of pedantic nit picking I usually associate with the “Taliban” wing of Christianity.”
Actually it seems to be par for the course when arguing with Atheists.
Alpha - can you please explain what you mean in your first comment?
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Aaron, think of it like this: if an atheist is being pedantic about specific actions and sayings of a Jesus whose existence isn’t documented by any sources from back then, then this atheist is giving the Christian belief far more credit than is due.
If I were a Christian, I’d say: “YES!!!” whenever I encountered such an atheist who has become so used to Christianity that he misses the big picture and instead (1) helps clarify and define aspects of the belief and (2) helps acknowledge the validity and applicability of the belief by debating its finer aspects.
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First of all, The Gospel of Judas is not part of the Bible and should not be considered as fact. God sent his only son to earth to teach about him and save us from all of the bad things we have done. Jesus had to die because if he didn’t we would not be able to go to heaven, because our misdeeds are too numerous. We have been given a choice: Jesus and heaven or Satan and hell. When you reject Jesus you are following Satan. Jeus died because his father asked it of him, and in his death he saved the world from all of the sins (misdeeds) committed. But after 3 days Jesus Christ rose from the dead and he returned to his father in heaven. Jesus Christ is not dead, he is living. He is living in every follower of him. If you accept Christ you will recieve eternal life. The choice is yours, that is why God gives us free will. He will not force himself upon us.
Also, I’d to add that Jesus was perfect and had no faults and never sinned.
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@Old Wolfe
Josephus?
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Aaron, c’mon now, you know better than that! Josephus was not a contemporary. Besides that fact, there is the matter of whether or not the single paragraph in Josephus’ accounts are even by him. Scholars have been debating this for sometime now. Linguistically, it does not match up with the rest of his writings and seems almost crammed in there later down the road.
Let’s say that it was written by him. Don’t you find it odd that he would use a WHOLE page to describe what Herod had done to one thief, and yet this revolutionary miracle working son of god gets only…one paragraph? Seems kind of odd, until we realize that at the time, there were hundreds of miracle working “saviors” around the world.
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You are absolutely correct. However, you may want to ask yourself why they are not part of the Bible. A brief look into the history of the “Holy” scripture reveals the truth of the matter. It was Constantine, a pagan Roman ruler (perhaps you have heard of him), who offered money to church leaders of the time to come up with a canon that they could agree on. Thus, the Council of Nicaea took place in 325 and they began to choose (or “vote”) the texts that were to be admitted into the canon. The canon was not considered “closed” until the Council of Trent which convened 3 times between 1545 and 1563. They had from 325 to 1563 to choose, revise and edit their god’s “static truth.” It is also well documented that there were over 200 gospels from which to choose from. From 200 (including the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and indeed the Gospel of Truth) to 4? Hmmmm. Anybody else smell the stench?
According to your belief, Jesus IS god. So, in essence, god asked himself to sacrifice himself to himself to appease himself to save us from sin, which he knew would happen before he framed the world. Yeah, that makes absolutely no sense.
Actually, Friday evening to sunday morning is, at best, one and a half days. (This means he could not even fulfill his own prophecy in Mt 12:38-41.)
Of course, we have those missing 18 years…
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[...] that it is today. The rest of this post is in response to a comment received on this post. First of all, The Gospel of Judas is not part of the Bible and should not be considered as [...]
I find it curious that “athiests” seem to read the bible in more detail than alot of Christians. Seems like they’re still trying to convince themselves…..that’s good! Search and you will find, knock - and the door will be opened for you.
I will make it simple: Jesus rose from the dead, performed many miracles (including raising Lazurus from the dead), and preached his truth in front of thousands of witnesses. Jesus said he was God.
I believe him. You’re not sure (if you were, you wouldn’t waste your time reading the Bible or even discussing Christianity). I know it doesn’t make sense in our day and in our 3 dimensional world. But that’s just our little world…not God’s. You’ve got to put aside your paradigm of what can and can’t be, and then examine Jesus’ teachings. Then, hopefully, the truth will become apparent despite all the inconsistencies with our world.
And that is FAITH. Please, keep at it and hopefully the truth will become acceptable to you. And then, through embracing the truth, you will become acceptable to God. Make no mistake, he already loves you. But you’ve got to reciprocate!
Incidentally, it didn’t make sense to me either, even though I was raised a Christian. Too many wierd things to believe. Didn’t match up with my world view as a university trained scientist… But then I read the Bible through and voila! I believe! Does it always make total sense to me? No. Do I sometimes doubt it? Yes. That’s just our human nature. I no longer question Jesus’ truth, just my ability to accept it and live according to God’s will.
As a truth loving person, please get a copy of “A Case for a Creator” - book or DVD. You will see proofs of God’s hand in creation that no scientist or Darwinist can explain away.
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Chris,
Nope. We read the bible to become more familiar with the arguments presented to us. The old parable “Know thy enemy” comes to mind. Lawyers are taught “don’t ask the question unless you know the answer”. Governments and militaries practice information warfare, consisting primarily of gathering as much information as possible. Knowledge is power. Without being aware of the controversy, how can anyone support any opinion? How can anyone rationally support one opinion, having never considered any opposing positions?
What is strange to me is that Christianity frowns upon the gathering of knowledge when that knowledge is inconsistent with “Faith”…
Using your logic, you must not fully accept the idea of God - you’re reading articles that tend to deny biblical accounts, so your faith must be incomplete. My point is that your logic is flawed: One need not believe Odin formed an ash tree into the first man, and an elm into the first woman in order to study Norse mythology. Atheists treat Christianity in the same manner as any other mythology: When people contend these myths are true, we provide a skeptical position.
Not “weird things” - “Contradictory things”. This is not Orwell’s 1984 - Doublethink has no place in a rational mind.
Until we set aside irrationality, morality is limited to the opinions of an ancient agrarian society that not only condemned homosexuality, but also pork, shellfish, cloth made of multiple types of thread… A society that promoted sexism, racism, slavery… One that considered corporal punishment and torture acceptable for many misdemeanor-type crimes, and fees and fines acceptable for certain felonies and homicides.
http://www.caseagainstfaith.com/
http://www.caseagainstfaith.com/articles/strobel_cfac.htm
There are numerous challenges to Strobel’s conclusions. I’m watching the YouTube version right now - I’ll post both it and my comments in a new post, so keep checking back at TheJesusMyth.com
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