I Believe in a Mean Jesus
By mean I do not mean a grumpy guy who kicks at puppies. A mean is midpoint between any two extremes. One extreme is a Jesus who is, uniquely and alone, God the Son incarnate. The other extreme is a fantasized Jesus who was never human at all. I propose that the author of the Gospel of Mark had in mind a man or men who were perfect examples of an anointing, the manifestion of the PRINCIPLE that is Jesus Christ. On the one hand, we have the very real principle of the Ineffable's NATURE to become manifest in all Its goodness and glory, which cannot become an individual man; and on the other hand we have men enjoying the manifestation of the Ineffable's nature in their lives which is through, and cannot exist apart, from that anointing.
It is apparent that Mark had in mind Gautama Buddha as his prime example (see the Christian Lindtner Theory CLT). As a Therapeut (Pali "son of the elder'), Mark might also have had himself in mind as an example (remember, what he was writing about was (and is) all psychological; it wasn't about any people except as they served as symbols of what he wrote about). The principle that is Jesus Christ has been know for eons (that may be an exaggeration, but see Freke and Gandy The Jesus Mysteries). Moses was searching for Jethro, God’s Life of Abundance. I suspect that Mark, having learned the true meaning of the Jewish Scriptures from mystics at Alexandria, encountered spiritually anointed Jews near the end of the Season of Grace (Israel between the destructions) who were butting heads with the non-spiritual leadership of the Jews. I do not doubt that there was a man or men who were so absorbed in the Anointing that they presented every bit of the Jesus Christ we have in the New Testament. Yes, Mark presented Buddha as his primary example of the principle, but these men were his proof.
So what we have is a mean Jesus: not a unique other incarnate, nor a hypothesis. We have real people manifesting the real principle of that is Jesus Christ exemplarily AS THE GIFT OF GOD TO US IN THE SEASON OF GRACE. And his message to us in it is: "'Tis the Season!"
Have a merry Christmas.
Continued in “I Believe in a Mean Jesus, Too.”
It is apparent that Mark had in mind Gautama Buddha as his prime example (see the Christian Lindtner Theory CLT). As a Therapeut (Pali "son of the elder'), Mark might also have had himself in mind as an example (remember, what he was writing about was (and is) all psychological; it wasn't about any people except as they served as symbols of what he wrote about). The principle that is Jesus Christ has been know for eons (that may be an exaggeration, but see Freke and Gandy The Jesus Mysteries). Moses was searching for Jethro, God’s Life of Abundance. I suspect that Mark, having learned the true meaning of the Jewish Scriptures from mystics at Alexandria, encountered spiritually anointed Jews near the end of the Season of Grace (Israel between the destructions) who were butting heads with the non-spiritual leadership of the Jews. I do not doubt that there was a man or men who were so absorbed in the Anointing that they presented every bit of the Jesus Christ we have in the New Testament. Yes, Mark presented Buddha as his primary example of the principle, but these men were his proof.
So what we have is a mean Jesus: not a unique other incarnate, nor a hypothesis. We have real people manifesting the real principle of that is Jesus Christ exemplarily AS THE GIFT OF GOD TO US IN THE SEASON OF GRACE. And his message to us in it is: "'Tis the Season!"
Have a merry Christmas.
Continued in “I Believe in a Mean Jesus, Too.”
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
12:18 AM
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