Chili discourse on the Devil split from Jeffrey Gibson's thread What the Devil

[Chili]

Perhaps not very scholarly but I always thought that the Jesus tempted in the wildernis was the to be abandoned identity of Jesus while the son of man identity was in Cana having a good time with his ancestors. Notice that the Cana event in John replaced the temptation story of Matthew and Luke who were not privy to that event. Matthew was not because it is far beyond him and Luke because he was reporting from Matthews beyond. Mark doesn't report metaphysics and I would say that John shows us what the good life is all about . . . to say that every Christian should have been there.

[Jeffrey Gibson]

Perhaps not very scholarly but I always thought that the Jesus tempted in the wildernis was the to be abandoned identity of Jesus while the son of man identity was in Cana having a good time with his ancestors. Notice that the Cana event in John replaced the temptation story of Matthew and Luke who were not privy to that event. Matthew was not because it is far beyond him and Luke because he was reporting from Matthews beyond. Mark doesn't report metaphysics and I would say that John shows us what the good life is all about . . . to say that every Christian should have been there.

http://frogstar.com/wav/displaywav.asp?fil=looney.wav

Jeffrey

[Chili]

I forgot to ask you Jeffrey if this devil was the one with the pitchfork and the tail or are we supposed to pin the tail on the one with the pitchfork here.

Do these scholars actually believe that there was a physical devil harassing a physical Jesus?

[Chili]

. . . but, if the Wedding in Cana led to a honeymoon for Jesus and his new-found love it is easy to see that the devil isn't gonne get very far with Jesus right about here, yet the temptation will be there to show the volume of wisdom and wealth that the Cana event revealed to him.

[Jeffrey Gibson]

I forgot to ask you Jeffrey if this devil was the one with the pitchfork and the tail or are we supposed to pin the tail on the one with the pitchfork here.

Do these scholars actually believe that there was a physical devil harassing a physical Jesus?

Why would they, let alone, even if they did, that the physical one had a pitchfork and a tail? Where within the biblical and inter-testamental portrait and portrayal of God's agent for testing the faithfulness of those covenanted to God does this notion of what Satan/the devil ever appear?

Instead of giving us your fuzzy unintelligible new age nonsense as "proof" of your views, why don't you actually cite some evidence for a change?

Jeffrey

[Jeffrey Gibson]

. . . but, if the Wedding in Cana led to a honeymoon for Jesus and his new-found love it is easy to see that the devil isn't gonne get very far with Jesus right about here, yet the temptation will be there to show the volume of wisdom and wealth that the Cana event revealed to him.

http://frogstar.com/wav/displaywav.asp?fil=twilzone.wav

Jeffrey

[Chili]

We do not know whether it is evil "necessarily" but Satan's entry into Judas "explains" in Luke Judas treachery and falsehood. To say that Satan acts on God's behalf, simply testing faith in God, or even out of 'zeal for divine justice', as Jeffrey claims, empties the gospels of their most basic and quintessential message - the intervention of God through his Son on the side of good. (Mk 10:18, Lk 18:19). This is an argument - whether conscious or not - for ethical relativism which IMO is completely alien, and anitithetical to Jewish apocalyptism, and early Christianity.

Jiri

Yes it is but but not as the final destiny.

All this means is that religion is like a game we play . . . for keeps (to be sure) as if it was a means to the end (kind of like a wheel barrow or some other vehicle). Religion is the backbone of each and every mythology for the simple reason that eternal life belongs to the mythology from where our temporal life is extracted.

To this Augustine said something like "know God and do what you want" or "know thyself and do what you want" to say only that if we are censored by nature itself (circumcision by nature or just being a Nazarite or Jesuit) will freedom of action will be ours = to be of one mind instead of two.

[Chili]

So Judas did the right thing since faith is the last thing to be abandonned because there are no temples in the New Jerusalem (Rev.21:22). To replace him a new insight must be chosen and that is the justice that Jesus gained from natural law as Nazarite in Galilee (we call it purgatory, which now means that the Gosples are not synoptic at all but just purgatory plays that show us the wrong in Matthew, the naked physics in Mark to which the metaphysics are added in Luke that leave us with a working Gosplel for Catholics in John = no desert scene but a royal banquet instead because Catholics are basically good).

Take note that without the total abandonment of religion it becomes like a filthy rag and Peter knows exactly what they look like from "get thee behind me satan."