Who was Jesus?

In Mere Christianity, C S Lewis asserted that Jesus was either 'mad, bad or who He said He was'. Now I don't believe that the carpenter from Nazareth, who ended His life nailed to a cross, was either 'mad' or 'bad'. I do , however, have a slight problem with 'who He said He was'. According to Matthew's gospel, which begins with his genealogy, he was descended from Israel's most illustrious king and the fulfilment of old testament prophecy. Mark stresses His humanity and refers to Him as 'Son of Man'. Luke, the physician, concentrates on Jesus the healer. It is in John's gospel, generally acknowledged to be the most spiritual, that he makes most reference to His relationship to God: I and the Father are one (John 10:30) and Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9) implying that He is the incarnation of God or God made flesh. So putting this together: He is both God and man; a healer and the promised Messiah for the Jews.

Bart Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus is not the first to call into question the authority of the bible, although it has become a national talking point in America. I remember reading the Bishop of Woolwich's Honest to God, which quite rightly challenged the image of God as some sort of Father Christmas figure in the sky. My own belief is that God is ultimately a mystery and that Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. There are issues of translation and variations in the many, many copies of the New Testament but these are slight in comparison with the overall agreement. Ehrman himself says that he is not questioning whether God is true but whether scripture can give us access to the truth of God. If the bible can't deliver truth then we are dependent on individual revelation and conviction. To a degree I accept this whilst still holding on to the belief that knowledge of the bible, whether or not it is the authoritative word of God, is important. The image in Holman Hunt's painting encapsulates not only the words in the book of revelations, but my idea of God's relationship to man. We have to open the door and invite God into our lives. Both Jesus and the bible present a mirror to God. This view does not rule out other faiths also offering a mirror. Scientists have even identified a God shaped hole in our physiology.

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. (Revelations 3:20)

There does seem to be a tendency to blame Jesus for atrocities done in His name. Whether or not we believe in original sin as depicted in the garden of Eden, we are flawed creatures. I find visualising or earthly reality in terms of Plato's theory of forms appealing. This world is transient, subject to decay, and death, but we are capable of conceptualising, if not realising, perfection. We all fall short but the most flawed individuals, of whatever persuasion, Christian, Muslim, Jew, are the extremists: those whose worlds are rigidly divided into 'them' and 'us'; those who believe that if you are not with them you are against them; those who believe that all who are not like them deserve to die. Such thinking leads to the horrors of Bergen Belsen, Hiroshima and the bombing of the Twin Towers. As for the rest of us, we are culpable.

Evil flourishes whilst the good man does nothing.