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Point of Anal Retentive Dissent: Joel Send a noteboard - 04/10/2011 03:54:00 PM
What you are talking about, though, is not a change in theology but a complete paradigm shift, an invalidation of all that went before. Even Christ didn't do that. It would mean that either our fundamental understanding of God was completely flawed or that the teachings of Christ and his apostles were nearly completely erroneous, at which point we are not changing our religion, but switching to a new one.

Of course the change Christ brought to Judaism - for those who chose to follow him, anyway - is very different from the one Joseph Smith came up with, but it certainly was a paradigm shift and a switch of religions. A Messiah had been predicted, not a Son of God, nor God himself made flesh. That's a pretty huge difference, so you can't blame the Jews who weren't persuaded... and then you get all the later prophets - Muhammad, Shabtai Zvi, Joseph Smith, the Bab'ullah and Baha'ullah, and no doubt dozens of lesser-known ones - each of whom claimed to be a new prophet with a new message from God that did indeed contain new information, and created a new religion or denomination in the process as many believers refused to follow suit. I don't know too much of the details, but I remember seeing figures suggesting that Shabtai Zvi was just as successful than Jesus, or more so, in terms of the amount of Jews who were convinced that he was the Messiah - until he publicly converted to Islam, anyway, his group of followers dwindled rather fast at that point, even if the movement survives to this day.

So it's definitely a valid point to make - if you suppose God really did send a new prophet, or Himself again, it does seem highly unlikely that all Christians would believe it and follow him - so it might result in yet another religious split.

Technically, Philo of Alexandria at least approaches (and arguably reaches) the level of saying the Messiah would be God made flesh. Note that, while the linked Wikipedia article focuses on similarities between Philo and Platos use of Logos, but Philo unequivocally identifies the Messiah as a living embodiment of the Torah, a human who perfectly satisfies (and thus demonstrates) obedience to Mosaic law. It is hard to ignore how reminiscent that is of the Gospel portrait of Jesus (particularly since Philo and Jesus were contemporaries) but Philo represented himself as quintessentially Jewish.
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Point of Anal Retentive Dissent: - 04/10/2011 03:54:00 PM 1110 Views
That concept is alien to the Christian theological understanding, however. - 03/10/2011 10:18:55 PM 1195 Views
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Why don't they have anything approaching a formal theology? *NM* - 04/10/2011 03:58:16 AM 730 Views
Re: Why don't they have anything approaching a formal theology? - 04/10/2011 05:23:12 PM 1229 Views

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