NT Wright says Jesus was Insane: Atheism or Religion? Debate

http://Godnoliar.com/?p=62

I put some atheist keywords/tags below, so that Atheists/Agnostics could find this video. It would be interesting to hear what they have to say about this. Is Bishop NT Wright actually a subtle advocate for Atheism (when he says Jesus is insane?)

[Keywords: nt wright bishop tom atheism atheist apologetics debate seminary christopher hitchens bill maher richard dawkins philsophy ron paul george carlin libertarian emerging church emergent john macarthur mark driscoll paul washer piper cs lewis theology new perspective auburn avenue ]

NT Wright says Jesus Doubted he was God

NT Wright in his book "The Meaning of Jesus", writes...

"I do not think Jesus "knew he was God" in the same way that one knows one is tired or happy, male or female. He did not sit back and think to himself, "Well I never! I'm the second person of the Trinity!" Rather, "as part of his human vocation, grasped in faith, sustained in prayer, tested in confrontation, agonized over further in prayer and doubt, and implemented in action, he believed that he had to do for Israel and the world, that which according to scripture only YHWH himself could do and be. The question is often raised as to whether such a position compromises Jesus' modesty of his sanity. These objections gain their force from anachronistic assumptions about the way normal people behave; but in any case Jesus was frequently challenged on both grounds, and we have no reason to suppose, the early church made this material up. The Jesus I have described is both thoroughly credible as a first-century Jew and thoroughly comprehensible as the one to whom early, high, Jewish Christology looked back." (The Meaning of Jesus, Wright & Borg, SPCK, 2003, p. 166).

Wright seems quite certain about the psychology of Jesus. Notice how he asserts, "as part of [Christ's] human vocation, grasped in faith, sustained in prayer, tested in confrontation, AGONIZED OVER FURTHER IN prayer and DOUBT and implemented in action, he believed that he had to do for Israel and the world, that which according to scripture only YHWH himself could do and be."

Ironically, Wright is certain that Jesus was uncertain! This raises a question - if "Right Reverend" (or is his oh-so-humble title actually Extremely Reverend?) Tommy had met Jesus 2000 years ago, would we have heard him saying to Jesus, "I am certain that you are uncertain that you are the Son of God"? Or perhaps the Bishop of Durham (apparently Durham only has one elder in the entire region!) would say to Jesus, "Come on Jesus, as a Jew you cannot know you are God!" ... Hmm.. And if Wright was living in Christ's day - if his priestly Anglican costume didn't cause him to be mistaken as a Pharisee, his Jesus-can't-say-he's-God doctrine would have.

Wright would have got quite well along with the Pharisees - that's one implication about Wright's teaching (that Jesus should have/did doubt he was God). But there's also many more interesting implications.

For example - consider the issue of Jesus being God. Since Wright says Jesus doubted, he either has to conclude that...
1) God can doubt
or
2) Jesus is not God.

I'd like to see whether Wright chooses to side with the Open Theists or the Unitarians on this one.

Another question for Wright...

Who exactly was Jesus "doubting", according to Wright? Certainly, if Jesus doubted he was God, he would have been doubting the Father (who said to Jesus directly, "This IS my beloved Son").

Maybe if Wright had written the New Testament, he would have had Jesus respond to the Father by saying, "no, actually I'm not quite sure whether I'm God or not."

Moreover, did Jesus forget he wrote the Old Testament? Couldn't Jesus remember that the Psalms he wrote about his own sufferings (1 Pet 1:10-11)? Really, has Jesus gone schizophrenic, in Wright's view? Has Jesus forgotten that the Psalms were not about the private experiences of David, but were actually his experiences? (2 Pet 1:20). Many of the Psalms say that the Messiah would be God - so for Jesus to doubt he was God, he would either have to say...

1) He was not the Messiah
or
2) The Messiah was not God.

Which one is it Reverend Doctor of Divinity Wright?

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[DaleCampbell]

It is not Wright who is reading things into the scripture, but you who are reading things into Wright...

In no way is Wright saying Jesus was 'insane'. The title and subject of this video appear to be intentionally (and dangerously) provocative to get 'hits'... This is a harmful tactic. Wright is a good scholar who loves Christ.

Don't paint him in this light...

[HHGary]

He's not saying Jesus was a fruit loop. He's simply examining the human experience of temptation - the voice in your head which says, "go ahead and do it - why not?" Then he adds that to the fact that Jesus was fully human (as well as fully God), so most likely experienced temptation similarly.

[changeinjoy]

Whether or not one agrees that Wright was making this claim (though he was not), this is a very anti-intellectual argument. To get into the habit of taking writers this far out of context fosters the act of taking scripture out of context.

This promotes an unthinking sort of faith, which lacks both charity and any real interest in digging deeper into the scripture.

[crustomatic16]

Andrew...nice try...NT Wright would put you in check in 3 moves

[danallison100]

You are committing slander. Shame on you.

[candiceevans1]

i think he was referring to when satan took him up on a high mountain etc he was assuming this was not physical but imaginary and that is really dangerous ,,,this saying Jesus is a fruit loop is BLASPHEMY AND A DISGRACE

[pwnedbyagnome]

Wow...did you folks who made this video actually read the book? anwyays, let me point out that you completely misunderstood what Wright was intending to communicate: Jesus, as he was completely human(as well as completely God), experienced tramatic temptation in his "encounter" with Satan. NOT....Jesus was crazy or mentally confused.

Around 3:00 you said basically that believing Jesus could have demons in his head denies his sovereignty is not well-thought thru...Jesus was also human--temptation

[ambigroove]

FYI if you fast for a long period of time and get deficient on vitamins you can very well start to hear voices and have hallucinations. B-vitamin deficiency can cause audio hallucinations.

[Famespeare]

What a waste of a lot of hot air!!!!

[BoricuaChiTown]

he was probably just struggling with the demons of the prophecies in Isaiah 60, where it was said that the messiah would come to massacre anyone who didn't want to pay taxes to Israel, which would end up being an empire like Rome, except theocratic in nature

[BoricuaChiTown]

1 Samuel 9:9

[BoricuaChiTown]

i think jesus was probably a schizophrenic or epyleptic if this is literal truth, but most likely he was just a very ordinary shaman who went on a vision quest, and his quest was presented in poetic terms in the Bible, where there are many other fraudulent supernatural claims made about him. keep in mind that his mentor also exhibited signs of shamanic religiosity and spirit work: john the baptist wore animal hides (camel). the prophetic tradition is really shamanism accordin to 1 Samuel 9:9