Jesus: Liar, Lunatic or Boddhisattva?

This video looks at C.S. Lewis' famous "trilemma", in which he claims that Jesus must either be a liar, a lunatic or the lord. I argue that Jesus may have been misrepresented. Setting this aside I point out that the trilemma is only an issue if the moral teachings of Jesus could only have come from a "great man". Given that his morality is based on the same compassion promulgated by Buddha centuries earlier however, the whole trilemma is moot anyway.

Credits and Copyright

Written and produced by Conrad Leviston, 2009.

All images are either public domain or produced by the author, except

Liar by Paul Agule
Jungian scheme by Andrzej Brodziak, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5
Ceylonese Buddha by Bernard Gagnon, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0
Sogyal Rinpoche in prayer by wikimedia commons user Lotsawa108, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0
Buddha Shakyamuni by Yaska, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

This video is freely distributable, provided this credit and copyright section remains intact.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Jesus
• C.S.Lewis
• liar
• lunatic
• lord
• atheism
• athiesm
• atheist
• secular
• humanism
• Buddhism
• Dhammapada
• Buddha
• Christianity
• apologetics

[MrHunterdion]

Erhman ignores the scholars who answered the non-historicity of Jesus question long ago (ff bruce/o. betz). Lewis' argument is sound given that the NT documents are reliable something Bruce demonstrated.

[conradleviston]

The New Testament documents are not reliable to the level required for Lewis' argument to hold. Look at the three different accounts of Peter denying Jesus, the two different accounts of Judas' death or the different accounts of who discovered Jesus' tomb was empty and tell me that we can put weight on every nuanced word. To bring these accounts into accord we must use the most contrived apologetics, so the inconsistant message of Christ's divinity holds little value without faith.

[MrHunterdion]

What is your source? I gave you three that support my point: the NT is a reliable document (FF Bruce/Otto Betz and try AT Robertson who didn't even believe the Resurrection story yet was objective enought to write a book showing the nt as reliable!

[conradleviston]

Oh for goodneass sake, that is just silly. I could give dozens of sources that say that the NT is unreliable (you even mentioned Ehrman yourself). What I am doing is trying to get you to do your own reading so that you can understand to what level you can trust the Bible, otherwise you run the risk of using a conclusion out of context. You can't take conclusions like "the NT is reliable" dogmatically otherwise you end up looking like an idiot (see my earlier cited examples).

[MrHunterdion]

Last thing, for different writers to have "slightly" different details does not imply inaccuracy in the essential idea under discussion i.e. Jesus arose from death! Since you cited those examples it seems you are implying contradiction. This shows that you do not know what an actual contradiction is.

[conradleviston]

So do you think that the Bible is accurate enough to establish that the tomb was empty and people saw Jesus afterwards, but not accurate enough to establish exactly who was there?

My contention is that even if we do grant the Bible such accuracy then that it is not a high enough degree to establish reasonably that Jesus claimed that he was the son of God.

[Gnug215]

I think you are probably the most undersubscribed person here on YouTube.

Great video!

[leporidus]

According to folks like Bart Ehrman and Christopher Hitchens, there is a fourth option complementing the lord/liar/lunatic trilemma (and making the latter two alternatives more plausible): legend.

[MrHunterdion]

Further, in the 19th century German critics like FC Baur argued that the nt was written 100 years after the events it purports to relate. However AT Robertson turned that theory upside down showing that the NT was written between 30 and 75 AD! William Foxwell Albright also came to the same conclusion. Thus there was not enought time for the writers to compile legends about Jesus!

[MrHunterdion]

Sorry but I cite those scholars so you can study their evidence.. So we have scholars on both sides great. Fredrick Bruce was a world class scholar at Manchester U and Robertson was perhaps the foremost Greek scholar of the NT from th 50's to his death who cannot be accused of christian bias. Further Erhman's mentor at Princeton Bruce Meztger held to the NT reliabilty. I have done the research I humbly suggest you read these sources.

[qaplatlhinganmaH]

check out

wikipedia

Greco-Buddhism

Buddhism and Christianity