I have found this book, thus far, to be quite the intriguing piece of literature. Lewis is both wittily intelligent and yet at the same time comfortingly down-to-earth. He presents his thoughts and ideas very clearly and succinctly. Also his analogical way of describing just about every point he makes is also helpful in understanding the book. C.S. Lewis raises some very interesting queries as to the legitimacy of Jesus teaching and the great following he amassed during his three year ministry. One such query is the Trilemma: answering the question of Was Jesus a liar, a lunatic, or was he truly God as he claimed to be?.
Let us evaluate these possibilities. Jesus was a lunatic. This man was so insane that he believed himself to be the God who created Heaven and Earth and all of the universe, in which case, assuming that he truly is insane, that statement also makes him a liar. This makes me think of a comment that a student made during class discussion today. A student said something along the lines of If he really believed that he truly was God, then he wasnt lying because thats what he thought he really was.. I could not disagree more.
It is simply put this way: It doesnt matter who or what he thought he was, he is lying no matter how you bend it. If I were to go around proclaiming that I was Superman and that I traveled as a baby in a small asteroid-like chamber from my home planet Krypton to be found by the people who are my parents now, people would undoubtedly think I was a lunatic, but I still completely, utterly, through and through believe that I am Superman, it doesnt make my proclamation of Superman any more true than if I was joking. Basically Im still lying, regardless of whether I believe it to be true or not. If you say that you are something that you are not, you are lying, no matter how devoutly you believe in it. However, this man did do things that one might consider insane. In the Gospels, Jesus cleared the temple of merchants and moneychangers by ripping a giant rope off of a nearby curtain and knocking over stands and tables with it. Still assuming that he might be insane, this would more than likely further convince someone that he is insane. Honestly, who runs into the modern-day equivalent of a flea market and starts hitting peoples stuff with a rope and knocking it over, and breaking it. Thats a little insane, eh? The acceptance of Jesus as a Great Moral Teacher, but not the Messiah by non-believers is just a cop-out.
The Essay on The Flogging Of Jesus
John 18:39- but it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release `the king of the Jews'?" King of Jews- He's not the king of the Jews, He's slapping them in the face. The same thing Jesus was being accused of Barnabbas did. JN 19:1 Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. [2] The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it ...
That is just something said by people who choose to turn a deaf ear to religion. If Christ was a good moral teacher, but was not God, as he claimed to be, then he would be a liar and a hypocrite, because he based his teaching on a falsehood, and once that falsehood is revealed, everything that was structured around that lie would crumble.
