Jesus' last words

Agonizing is one thing, forsaking is another. If the Father and the Son are One, how is it possible for either to forsake the other?

In the Aramaic NT, the Aramaic word in question is used over 200 times, yet the only two times it's translated as "forsaken" is in reference to Jesus's final words on the cross. I don't think that's because the other 200 translations are wrong, but because the two translations of "forsaken" are wrong.

Let's assume for a moment that God did "relinquish" the Son for a time, so as to fulfill a specific task that both Father and Son had committed themselves to fulfill. Surely neither Father or Son could forsake the other if such a task were to be fulfilled. Surely the Son knew he was being relinquished into the hands of those who would crucify him, for a purpose he knew full well of.

If it was a rhetorical question that the Son was asking, who was he asking it of? Perhaps he was asking it of those who knew full well what he was referring to, those who knew full well the chapters of Psalms 22 & 23; those who were most instrumental in having him put on the cross in the first place, and those who would now know the prophecy he was now consummating.

My God, my God, why hast thou relinquished me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

 

You may be correct
OTOH, even in that case that you propose, our all powerful god has presumably permitted a circumstance where the word of god has been pervasively translated in a misleading way. It raises a question about how many other “errors” are in the Bible’s that we reference

First, I do not agree that there is either a father or a son...

in any case, I do not think Jesus was in intimate communication with god
And so I think he did not think things would work out as they did
And I think that he agonized about the cruel fate inflicted on him as gods messenger

 

lol

For that matter, how is it possible for either to pray to the other?

And if the Son cannot possibly forsake the Father, how can the Son be tempted?

 

The Son became a man.

 

Not seeing an answer to either question here.

 

God can't be tempted, but if God becomes a man he can be tempted and pray to his God. That answers your questions.

 

I would agree with you that he agonized over his fate, and hoped that it would not have to turn out as it did. It does appear though, that Jesus thought he was in intimate communication with the "Father", though in a subservient manner. From Matthew 26:

39: Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."
42: "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."
....
45: Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners.
46: Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!"

 

So from His conception in the flesh to His physical death, He wasn't God. Right?

 

That's a good question. Christians have different views on that. My belief is he was both. His father was God, his mother human. My personal belief is his blood had not been tainted by sin and he met the requirements to pay for sin. God required a lamb without blemish in the Old Testament, a picture of Jesus. The Lamb of God, as John the Baptist called Him. Being in the flesh, He was tempted like any other man. Notice he never performed any miracles until after the Holy Spirit came over Him at his baptism. It's just my opinion.

 

All you blasphemous atheists better pray ... oops ... better hope you're right, or you're in a heap of trouble! (G)

 

I don't buy into that argument. I do think there is a sheep like mentality that locks translators into the early translations of hundreds of years ago without ever challenging them. But I don't think they've been "pervasively translated in a misleading way." They just sort of tweak them around a bit to make it more readable or more compliant to their own views on the various subjects.

Translation is always going to be an imperfect science, but even a poor translation will carry with it the basic components of a faithful rendition of the source text.

 

You just finish telling how there was bad translation that you claimed was misleading and you explained what you thought was correct

 

Sure.

 

I am speaking specifically of Isaiah and Hosea which were used by Matthew to mean Jesus when they actually meant Israel.

Consider this:

Which of the following was fulfilled in Jesus?


The messiah:

[1] is a king or High Priest traditionally anointed with holy anointing oil,
[2] is a human leader,
[3] is physically descended from the paternal Davidic line through King David and King Solomon,
[4] will accomplish (inter alia) -
[4a] the unification of the tribes of Israel,
[4b] gathering of all Jews to Eretz Israel,
[4c] the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem,
[4d] the ushering in of a Messianic Age of global universal peace, and
[4e] the annunciation of the world to come.

 

not sure believing in god as a fail safe is going to get you into heaven. Better watch your own destiny.

 

Margot is perfectly OK.

However the real deceit was with the scribes in Babylonian exile 600BCE who wrote the historical novel we call the Pentateuch. Adapted myths, and a family history which they sadly lacked. Using events they knew about they wrote a story around them.. We have no evidence of anyone or anything. No Abraham, Moses, Exodus.. There's more evidence against the Exodus than for it. .An internal takeover by the indigenous tribes of Palestine who threw out their Egyptian masters
Matthew misuses OT prophecies in the Nativity stories to make Jesus the Messiah. There's no reason why, decades after Jesus death, the writers - whoever they were - of the Gospels, should not use the same methods.
Jesus was a Jewish preacher - human birth. Brought up from the age of 5-12 to learn the Tanakh, he believed as a Jew. He saw the Hypocrisy of the Religious leaders and became an 'evangelist', seeking to bring Jews back to Jahweh. We've had plenty of 'Christian' evangelists. If you study his life he lived as a Jew, preached Judaism, followed Judaistic ritual. The writers simply put a few words in his mouth that a Jew would never say. Words that would turn the ordinary people away from him. He was crucified by leaders who knew he was right, but were losing control of the people. The trial story is simply a confused story - if you know Judaism. We don't know when Jesus was born, or when he died.

 

Jesus last word were” Beam me up Scotty”

 

Good post....…..

 

Agreed
first off all the gospels tell a different version of the trial story
And we really need to consider WHY this is the case
One possible reason for the discrepancies is the the gospel authors each largely invented (made up). The story’s that they told (other than some basic facts like Jesus was crucified)

why would I say this? Well, let’s start by figuring out how these proceedings took place. For example... did the proceedings happen in a court room with witness and a defense attorney? NO
If Jesus came before pilot at all.... he was dragged before a Roman overlord who maybe asked one or two questions before issuing a judgement. There was no conversation, there were no witnesses to hear what happened. The whole thing likely lasted 1-2 minutes before Pilot moved on.

but what do the gospels say about these events, first, they tell increasingly elaborate stories.... stories that they could not have possibly known because they had no witnesses who could report the events of Jesus trial before pilot.... there would not have been the elaborate conversation with Pilot.... and pilot definitely would not have agonized about whether or not Jesus was innocent, he would not have washed his hands of the matter because Jesus was just the next person whom Pilot decided to make an example of by crucifixion. Historically speaking, Pilot was a heartless cruel man who rather enjoyed showing the Jews that he had no regard for their opinions and feelings. Pilot was a tyrannical bung hole and did not give an excrement about either Jesus or the Jewish high priests. Jesus was executed for being a political rabble rouser (king of the Jews ).

There was no story of jesus’ Perfunctory trial to tell, and no witnesses to tell the that story. Therefore the stories in the gospels are just fantasies that were invented to flesh out the narrative they wanted to propound. And as the stories were expediently invented by different people with different dogmatic agendas.... obviously the stories would not coincide with eachother

 

Jesus descent through the line of David
This is an element that I find particularly intriguing
Obviously some NT authors found this an important issue
Important enough to provide two separate (and conflicting) genealogies of Joseph.
But... as we all know... Joseph WAS NOT JESUS FATHER
So these two genealogies (ludicrously extending back to ADAM AND EVE) are therefore certainly irrelevant in that Joseph is not Jesus FATHER

This then begs the question.....: Why go to the extraordinary effort to list out the irrelevant genealogy of Joseph?

as I see it,
It may be that the early church had not yet committed to Mary’s virgin birth, which would make Joseph to be Jesus father and therefore make his genealogy to be significant

but this scenario has several important collateral problems
The most obvious problem is that it completely undermines the virgin birth narrative
And then we have to ask how Christians became convinced of a virgin birth
And how did that virgin birth narrative make it into scripture other than being falsely inserted into scripture by gospel writers in order to support the evolving divinity of Jesus narrative

but even if we overlook that cluster of problems.... we still have to understand how two conflicting genealogies could make it into scripture.... and beyond that, do we actually believe there was an accurate genealogy of joseph that extended back to Adam and Eve?

And if we are skeptical of these conflict and ridiculously extended genealogies.... how did they make it into scripture? The most likely explanation would be that these genealogies were invented by the gospel authors... and they were inserted into the gospels to falsely convey the appearance of fulfillment of prophesy. But THAT would suggest that the entire “fulfillment of prophesy” was basically artificially invented in order to lend (false) credibility to the Jesus as Christ narrative

sadly, as problems in the Jesus as messiah narrative emerge... the problems compound upon each other. We start out thinking that the gospels are first hand accounts by Jesus disciples.... but as we start pulling the strings.... the entire narrative becomes suspect. We learn that the gospels were written long after the events, written by anonymous authors, who tell different and conflicting stories, and who appear to be spinning the story in a way that makes one wonder what is reliable in what they have written. Ie. was Joseph actually Jesus father or not? And if not, then why the genealogies?

 

Good post and thoughtful.. I seems to me that by the time the gospels were written the whole thing had become very political. Matthew's inclusion of Hosea and Isaiah as "proof" of Jesus as the expected messiah certainly appears to be political manipulation.

 

Yes,
That is a problem that sort of annoys me. Many Christians present the gospel as “the inspired word of god”. This position seems to exclude the (imo) obvious reality that real people wrote these books. And real people have agendas and make mistakes.

What ever ones ultimate religious convictions.... it seems to me to be a fools errand to battle against the sorts of issues that I raised in the effort to illustrate some problems in the NT that substantially undermine claims of inerrancy and being the inspired word of god

regards

 

Yep.. There's no way it could be the inerrant word of God .

 

Why would you expect four different witnesses to record an event the exact same way? If you told 4 of your friends to go to a football game, and for each of them to give you their own written recollection of the game the next day, do you really think each would give you the exact same story. Of course not, each would give you their own perception of the event.

Therefore, the entire premise of your long and lengthy post is built upon a false expectation. You set an impossible standard, and then fault those don't meet your impossible standard. Which is why I'm able to tell you who IS at fault. You are.