As to your last questions, I will try and tackle them in a future post, when I look at one of Jesus’ utterances while on the cross…

Have to hold you in suspense for a bit.

Mike Bell

On another note, concerinig Jesus’ attonning death, the Essenes (From the Dead Sea Scrolls, Qumran in Perspective by Geza Vermes, it’s shamefull the amount of thought I’ve put into Jesus without even going though the works he would have read or heard!)thought their extream purity would make them living sacrifices to replace the ones at the temple that they thought were now impure. It gave me insight on what Jesus may have meant by “To give his(the Son of Man’s)life as a ransom for many.”

I’m still having a problem with how Jesus of Nazareth could be God in a way that everyone else is not also God. If God died who was minding the store? Can God be both dead and alive at the same time? Does that take away from really being dead? I’ll re-read the previous articles to see if theres something I missed.
Mike W

I read the Mark 10 passage in quite a different way, almost like a series of rhetorical question. Why do you call me good? Do you realize that only God is good? Do you understand what you have just called me?

On Mark 2:5-7 (NIV) – “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
It follows with 2:10 “But I want you to know the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”(TNIV) In the book of Enoch, a work that Jude, presumably Jesus’ brother, feels is is worth of quoting as true (Jude 1:14-15), the Son of Man judges the world at the end of the age.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_man#In_the_Apocrypha_and_Pseudepigrapha
thus Jesus could be implying here that as the Son of Man, and judge of mankind, he can essentially grant pardons. Enoch doesn’t seem to take the position that the Son of Man is God, and neither do the Essenes, who make a lot of use of Son of Man doctrines and Enoch too.

Beyond that though I have given thought to what seem like a few round about assertions to Jesus’ divinity in Mark. along with the one we just mentioned, there is Mark 10:18 “why call me good? no one is good-except God alone” and the “who’s son is the Messiah” line from Mark 12:35-37. On the surface it seems the meanings are the Son of Man can also forgive sins, Jesus isn’t as good as God, and the Messiah is not the son (decedent) of David.

That there is a hidden meaning to the sayings seems very possible to me. Mark is fond of having Jesus tell people to keep his messiah hood a secret, and has Jesus say that the secret of the Kingdom of God is given to you but to every one else it is a parable(Mark 4:11 paraphrased). Further more Mark leaves us with no appearance of Jesus after his resurrection. Why? surely he had stories of his resurrection appearances. While I said earlier that I didn’t like the idea of secret teachings of Jesus, It may well be that mark intended his book for one audience but had additional material for more advanced disciples.

This leads to that research I mentioned earlier. One of your other post mentioned a puzzle about Paul giving some cats the Holy Spirit and they start speaking in tongues. it got me thinking about how the Holy Spirit was expressed in the New Testament vs. now. I looked at some video clips of Pentecostal services and I felt I got an insight into Paul’s churches. I feel when I read the New Testament I have to keep in mind these are people who say they see spirits and go to heaven(whether in body or in spirit they don’t know) I don’t know anybody who makes these claims and I don’t read books by people who make these kinds of claims. but this sort of thing has to affect you thinking, their rational is not my rational.

Looking Foward to the next instalment,
Mike W