Bono on Jesus

I have to say I never thought I'd ever look to Bono for spiritual advice or for his take on Christianity, but I have to say, he sure hits the nail on the head in this interview. Here is the best:

Christ has his rank among the world's great thinkers. But Son of God, isn't that farfetched?

Bono: No, it's not farfetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: he was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn't allow you that. He doesn't let you off that hook. Christ says: No. I'm not saying I'm a teacher, don't call me teacher. I'm not saying I'm a prophet. I'm saying: "I'm the Messiah." I'm saying: "I am God incarnate." And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet, we can take. You're a bit eccentric. We've had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey, we can handle that. But don't mention the "M" word! Because, you know, we're gonna have to crucify you. And he goes: No, no. I know you're expecting me to come back with an army, and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he's gonna keep saying this. So what you're left with is: either Christ was who He said He was—the Messiah—or a complete nutcase. I mean, we're talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson. This man was like some of the people we've been talking about earlier. This man was strapping himself to a bomb, and had "King of the Jews" on his head, and, as they were putting him up on the Cross, was going: OK, martyrdom, here we go. Bring on the pain! I can take it. I'm not joking here. The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me, that's farfetched …

The Other Side of the POV

Tempo writes:

This is a classic argument in Christian apologetics. However, it is based on the significant assumption that the gospels are an inerrant account. The first three gospels cross-triangulate substantially on the words of Jesus (in many of his aphorisms they use precisely the same words), but deviate from each other in their narratives. Academics believe that these three gospels are based on a source document which was solely a collection of Jesus' quotes passed down orally, and that the narratives were added later to tailor the message to different audiences. Nonetheless, he rarely speaks of himself in the other gospels in anything but an elusive manner. He certainly never directly says "I am the savior" in Matthew, Mark or Luke.

John, the most quoted of the gospels in evangelical circles, is anomolous in how Jesus speaks of himself ("I am the way, the truth, and the Life," etc) relative to the other accounts. The language, the style and the substance are significantly different than what we see in the first three. As far as I know, the idea that he claims to be the Saviour derive from John.

All of this presents an alternative explanation to Bono's. Jesus very well could have been the gifted Prophet, perhaps the most gifted religious teacher/revolutionary of all time. He could be very accurately quoted in much of the gospels. But his words and deeds could easily have been extrapolated upon, exaggerated and reconceived by his numerous followers to support their beliefs and agenda.

Based on this the either/or formulation doesn't seem valid.