Banned Questions About Jesus

Christian Piatt

Description

* Did Jesus ever have sex? * Was Jesus ever wrong? * Do people have to choose to follow Jesus to go to heaven? Ever get the feeling that you can't ask those kinds of questions at church? But if we can't ask the tough, keep-you-awake-at-night questions within our faith communities, then what good are those communities? Listen in as more than a dozen contributors-whose ranks include a lawyer, a recovering achiever/lapsed vegetarian, ministers (ordained and not ordained), and more-discuss the questions your Sunday school teachers were afraid to answer.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Chalice Press
• Date de parution: 30 juin 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780827202719
• Langue: English

Extrait

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EDITED BY CHRISTIAN PIATT

Copyright © 2011 by Chalice Press.

All rights reserved. For permission to reuse content, please contact Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], www.copyright.com.

Bible quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The opinions expressed in this work are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editors, the publisher, Chalice Press, Christian Board of Publication, or any associated persons or entities.

Cover image: iStockPhoto Cover and interior design: Scribe Inc.

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Print: 9780827202696

www.chalicepress.com

EPUB: 9780827202702

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EPDF: 9780827202719

Library of Congress Cataloging–in–Publication Data

Banned questions about Jesus / edited by Christian Piatt.  p. cm. ISBN 978-0-8272-0269-6  1. Jesus Christ—Miscellanea. I. Piatt, Christian. II. Title. BT295.B25 2011 232—dc23

Printed in United States of America

2011031370

Contents

Introduction: Why a Book about Banned Questions?

Questions:  1. Why would God send Jesus as the sacriÀcial lamb of God, dying for the sins of the world, instead of just destroying sin or perhaps offering grace and forgiveness to the very ones created by God? Why does an all-powerful being need a mediator anyway?  2. Many Christians embrace the phrase, “I believe Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, and I accept him as my personal Lord and Savior,” but I can’tÀnd this anywhere in the Bible. Where did it come from?  3. In John 14:6, Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Do people have to choose to follow Jesus to go to heaven? And what does it mean to choose his way?  4. Did Jesus ever have sex? Did he have sexual fantasies and desires?  5. Why did Jesus have to suffer so much before he died? Or did he have to?  6. What happened during the “missing years” of Jesus’ life, unaccounted for in the Bible?  7. How would we actually know if Jesus came again? Wouldn’t we just kill him all over again?  8. Why should I believe that Jesus was resurrected? What does it mean to the Christian faith if he wasn’t resurrected?  9. A woman in Mark 7:25–30 and Matthew 15:21–28 asks Jesus to heal her daughter, but hisÀrst response is to deny her help and call her a dog. Isn’t this a cruel, and pretty un-Christlike, response?  10. Does it really matter if Jesus was born to a virgin or not? What if Mary wasn’t a virgin or if Joseph (or someone else) was the father?  11. Did Jesus really live a life without any sin? What do we base this on? And does it matter? Why?  12. Why did Jesus cry out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” from the cross? Did God really abandon him? If so, doesn’t this mean that Jesus wasn’t actually God?  13. Why doesn’t there seem to be any physical evidence of Jesus’ life?  14. In Isaiah, Satan is referred to as the “Morning Star” and so is Jesus in Revelation. In 1 Peter, Satan is compared to a lion, and in Revelation, Jesus too is called a lion. Are these parallels intentional? Why?

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 15. Aren’t Jesus’ miracles similar to other healings and miracles recorded outside the Jewish and Christian tradition?  16. The Bible says that Jesus had siblings. Does that mean that there are people alive today who are from his family’s bloodline? Where are they? Who are they?  17. When Jesus participates in the Last Supper, doesn’t that mean he’s eating his own body and drinking his own blood?  18. Mormons believe that Jesus appeared to thousands of North American natives. Why do so many other Christians not believe this happened?  19. What’s the big deal with the Shroud of Turin? Is it real or fake? If it’s fake, why create it in theÀrst place?  20. Why did Jesus instruct people at times not to tell others who he was? Wasn’t this contrary to the idea of spreading the good news of his presence on earth?  21. Did Jesus understand himself to be God, like God, in line with God, or something else? Did he understand this from birth? If not, then when did he begin to understand it and how?  22. Is it possible that Jesus married and had children?  23. If Jesus could resurrect people, why didn’t he do it more often?  24. Galatians 3:22: Is it the faith of Jesus or faith in Jesus that’s the key?  25. Was Jesus a paciÀst?  26. Why would Jesus supply wine for a party as hisÀrst “miracle”? Doesn’t this seem more like a trick than a miracle? And does this mean he condoned drinking?  27. Where was Jesus for the time between his death and resurrection?  28. Most of our images of Jesus portray him with long blond or brown hair, blue eyes, and white skin. But what did Jesus really look like?  29. Who do people of the Jewish faith believe Jesus was? A prophet? Just a man? Why don’t they believe he was the Messiah?  30. When Jesus was resurrected, why did he still have wounds on his body?  31. Does Jesus ever refer to the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) in his ministry? If so, does he identify himself as part of that Trinity? If not, where did it come from?  32. What are the Jesus papers? Are they true? What do they mean to the Christian faith?

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 33. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus drives the money changers out of the temple just before he dies, but in John, this happens at the beginning of his ministry. Why are these accounts different? 115  34. In Mark 9:37, Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” Is Jesus saying here that he is not actually God? 118  35. Aside from the women and the disciples, are there any recorded stories of personal interaction between Jesus and other people after he was resurrected? Why wouldn’t he appear to more people? And why did he stay on earth for forty days? Is that symbolically important? 121  36. Was Jesus ever sick? If so, why not just heal himself? 125  37. After Jesus’ baptism, he is tempted in the desert several times. How is this different from when he teaches in Matthew 5:28 that “everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart”? Aren’t these basically the same thing? 128  38. In several places in the gospels, Jesus suggests that even he doesn’t know when he will return again to earth. Why not? Is God keeping it a secret from him? And if Jesus actually is God, shouldn’t he know everything? 132  39. Did Jesus believe God wanted him to be cruciÀed? If so, why did he ask God, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me” in the garden of Gethsemane? 135  40. Was Jesus ever wrong? About what? 139  41. Some gospel accounts trace Jesus’ lineage to King David through Mary’s family, while others trace it through Joseph. Is one of these wrong? And why trace it through Joseph if he wasn’t Jesus’ father by blood? 141  42. Did Jesus study other religions? Which ones? 144  43. In John 20:2, it mentions “the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved.” Who is this? Why not name that person? Was it a man or woman? What kind of “love” is the author talking about? 149  44. It seems like there are a lot of parallels between the stories of Jesus and the Egyptian mythology character, Horus. Could timelines be wrong somewhere, and could it be that the stories of Horus and Jesus actually are referring to the same person? 151  45. Why were books like the infancy gospels of James and Thomas not included in the Bible, especially since they include stories about Jesus’ childhood not included in the other gospels? 153

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 46. Jesus forgave people of their sins before he died. How could he do this if he actually had to die in order to save us from sin?  47. Jesus broke certain biblical laws by healing on the Sabbath, associating with non-Jews, and not keeping all of the kosher laws. So how do we know which rules to follow and which are irrelevant to us today?  48. Why would God put an unwed teenage mother through the difficulty of pregnancy, childbirth, and trying to explain how she got pregnant?  49. Why did Jesus heal some people by touching them, some when they touched him, and others without even meeting them? And then why use mud to cure a man from blindness? Did he really need this?  50. Did Jesus have a clue that people would call him Messiah or God Incarnate? Would he have tolerated these labels? Contributors List, Biographies, and Suggested Resources God Image Survey

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Introduction Why a Book about Banned Questions?

When I was younger, I had a Bible thrown at my head during a Sunday school class for asking too many questions. Granted, I was probably even more pro- vocative than your average adolescent, but I really did have a lot of legitimate questions about God, my faith, Jesus, and the Bible. The message I got at the time was that church isn’t the place for such questions. Seriously? If we can’t ask the tough, keep-you-awake-at-night questions within our faith communities, then what good are they? I left organized religion behind for about ten years, until I found a place where my questions not only would be heard and tolerated but also would be respected and wrestled with. Beyond that, the good people at Chalice Press had either the nerve or the lack of judgment necessary to offer me a book series to help others struggling with these same questions. In these pages you’llÀndÀfty of the most provocative, challenging, or otherwise taboo questions that many of us have wondered about but few have actually asked. I assembled an incredible team of respondents to offer their views on these hard questions. Their responses range from the personal to the profound and from sarcastic to deeply touching. I’m deeply grateful to each of them and for their commitment to sharing their hearts, minds, and experiences. The goal of this book is not to resolve these difÀcult issues once and for all but rather to open up an ongoing dialogue that allows us all to talk more openly together about what we believe and what we don’t and, perhaps more importantly, why we believe it. I strongly believe that any faith worth claiming should stand up to rigor- ous examination and should also be open to change over time. I hope that this collection is one step in your continuing journey as a person of faith, whatever that may look like to you. If you enjoy this book, be sure to check outBannedQuestionsaboutthe Bible, theÀrst book in theBannedQuestionsseries. And if you have questions you’d like me to consider for future editions or if you think of a topic for anotherBannedQuestionsbook, write me at [e-mail] and tell me about it. Christian

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