@Lovegrove@xanga - I am having a lot of trouble understanding exactly what your saying. Could you please elaborate with a little more detail?

God Bless,

Brother RobertLeeRE

@Lovegrove@xanga -  I am talking about your statement sad, or mistaken. Or your statement of his later interpreters being mad, sad or bad. Could you please stick to the original statement you said and elaborate a little on what you are saying? it really is coming across a little incoherant. Please elaborate on exactly "what" you are trying to say. Thank-you.

God bless,

Brother RobertLeeRE 

Please give me more details of how you think Jesus may have been mistaken in his beliefs. Could you please explain what you mean here? I really cannot understand your thought process, doesn't make sense to me. I really have no idea what in the world your trying to say.

I would also like to know what you mean that Jesus might have been sad.Can you please elaborate more on this? I also have absolutely no idea what your talking about. You really seem rather incoherant as if you have been drinking one too many in that pub you always claim your going to.

You also claimed Jesus might have been bad and CS Lewis never dealt with this. Could you please describe to me how you think Jesus might have been bad? What did you mean by that? You really come across quite incoherant to me.

God Bless,

Brother RobertLeeRE

@RobertLeeRE@xanga - If you're not even grasping the basics of what I'm saying, I'd rather not continue listening to you suggesting I'm drunk. Maybe you're an idiot, have you considered that?

Now if we've finished with the ad hominems, shall we start again?

@RobertLeeRE@xanga

@nidan

I tried adding the post writer to this comment but am unsure as to whether it took.

The last shall be first. In response to the second, overtly loaded question of the post, Jesus was indeed considered somewhat crazy, by those who knew him in his home town, amongst others.

Back to Clive Staples.

My initial response was “cs lewis gave the choices of mad or bad. How about sad, mistaken? Or how about his later interpreters being mad, sad or bad themselves?”

As often seems to be my wont, the last shall be first, just to get it out of the way. Later Interpretations and interpolations are themselves open to interpretation. As the televangelists reveal, those interpreting esoteric reports can be mad, sad or bad aka lunatics, mistaken or charlatans. Of course, one of them somewhere maybe speaking the truth, but it is better to leave them to reap the whirlwind or providence. When seen to be the charlatans or lunatics they certainly appear to be, then it is good to mock them in order to help raise the awareness of the credulous, although credulity appears to be a hard thing to break up. But I digress as is my wont.

What do I mean by adding the possibility of “sad or mistaken” to Lewis’ wee list? Imagine it is not Jesus saying what he is purported to have said and that there has been no eons of study on what he meant. That you just heard some guy in in a town square say what he said. I have actually heard similar statements but I digress, as you suspect is my wont.

What is reported to have been said is at best hearsay to the reader of the book containing the reports. But that is by-the-by. It still could all be true.

It is said that a man said he was in a special relationship with the Divine element, aka God. OK; Maybe he was and as some have it, still is. At one point, at least, he is reported to have said “Before Abraham was, I am” which in the Hebraic setting of the time was considered blasphemy.

Leaving aside the fact that declaring oneself to be as one with the universe or God, is just about the most common expression of mystical experience in any culture, that he could merely be unconsciously revealing that he was a genuine mystic, let us say that he believed literally what he is reported to have said.

Lewis declared, according the post writer above, that he was either a lunatic or the Devil, aka, mad or bad. Lewis is talking from the viewpoint of a post-Enlightenment position. That is, if a man said that today, he would indeed be considered mad or bad, a lunatic or a charlatan, both of which abound as we all know.

I merely offered alternative interpretations: that he was “sad, mistaken” aka earnest but wrong. What do I mean here? In his day and culture, such pronouncements on spiritual realities could be made by sane individuals. It was the universal norm, except amongst some intelligentsia such as amongst the Greeks, to hold very literal notions of the spiritual world and this particular culture had a book upon which they placed all their hopes for truth and the future. Of course, just like ever since and today, interpretations and interpolations abound. Lewis holds to one of the more traditional interpretations, which for lack of a better term is Trinitarianism. By that I mean that for Lewis, Jesus was telling the truth that he was a Divine figure, however later expressed.

So allowing that Jesus was sane and normal for the time and place, similar to what is reported to be a constant multitude of like wandering holy men, then  he may have been mistaken.  After all, pronouncing or rather suggesting, giving hints that one was the anointed Messiah awaited by the faithful, was a common occurrence. Everyone else who said it turned out, it seems, to have been mistaken. This makes them sad figures. “Sad” being an idiom, more reflecting my feelings about such figures who have wasted their lives chasing a dream in error. I feel sorry for them rather than mock them. One can be earnest and yet wrong. That is a sad situation. That’s all I meant by “sad”.

So in a nutshell, Lewis could have said that Jesus (or rather the traditional Christian interpretation of his reported utterances on the matter of his relationship with the spiritual realm) either was mad, bad or sad, or indeed, telling the truth. To reiterate, “sad” in this case meaning sane but mistaken. I merely offered another possibility.

It that clearer now? If not, I would welcome comments by anyone else as to whether what I have just said is understandable, even if they disagree.

@RobertLeeRE@xanga -

……….“just have no ideawhat your talking of. You've made some silly claims with no explanation of whatyou mean. I want to respond but your claims seem rediculous and overstated.”

If you “just have no idea” as what I’m talking about, how do you know if it is “silly” or not?

………. “Originally you said CS Lewis failed to account for Christ being sad”

Actually, I didn’t. I originally offered the possibility of Jesus being sad being just as much a possibility as Lewis’ “mad or bad”. You seem to have got the wrong end of the stick. I didn’t say
that Jesus was sad just that he might just as well have been sad as being mad or bad. There, I’ve reiterated it for emphasis. Does that help?

……….“you haven't explained why if Christ being sad would cause him to have made the claims he did.”

The possible explanation is implicit in the very words “mad, bad or sad”. He may have been telling the truth but that is a theological notion that we don’t seem to have reached yet, what with you not getting beyond my initial offering.

……….“You also haven't explained your preposterous claim if Christ were mad not even explaining whether you meant mad as in angry or mad as in crazy.”

Well, well, that is revealing. You appear not to have connected Lewis’ “lunatic” and my “mad”.
Okay, I’ll explain it. The two words mean the same thing. Got it now?

Lewis said the possibilities were that Jesus was a lunatic or the devil. Not one to mince words was Cyril. I suggested that Jesus could have been mistaken and put all three as “Mad, bad or sad.” Mad in case you are unaware is a synonym of lunatic; bad is a synonym, if milder of evil, personified by “Devil”; and sad as in it is not a happy state to be mistaken and not realize it.

……….“You also haven't explained what might cause Christ to be mad, historical evidence for it or against it---nothing.”

I’m reduced to explain things as to a child. What makes people mad is another question and better
suited for explanation by psychologists and psychiatrists. Apart from his extraordinary claims, as reported in later writings, which one might suspect is the result of mental aberration, I hope to be able to add this to my last comment on this matter and there I make a passing historical reference to the multitude of “Messiahs” and holy men wandering about the Judean deserts during those tumultuous times.

……….“As far as the drinking thing I was only joking as you posit the same joke to others about yourself.”

Fair enough. Say no more.

 .......... “And yes, you do come across a little incoherant on this subject. I am have a little difficulty discussing these issues with you.”

You seem to have displayed that you have not considered what the post actually reports Lewis as having said and then attempting to tie that with what I said. The latter is not possible if the former is not done. No wonder you “have a little difficulty”.

For starters the ' long-haired graven-image ' (shown above at Top) depicting this mythical character is not only a blasphemouus ' graven-image ' (according to bible Story book cf. Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, . . . . (Lev. 26:1) KJV Story book

BDB/Thayers # 6459