Q. But suppose everyone misunderstood him? Suppose he tried to teach the philosophy of the mystics, being one himself, but the Jews simply failed to understand him - both his friends and his enemies?
A. In that case, Jesus was the worst teacher in history. On all eight of the earlier points, he was understood to teach the distinctively Jewish, not mystical, doctrine - at all times, by everyone, until the twenty-first century!
So if Jesus was really teaching mysticism, if Jesus was not a rabbi but an "enlightened master", then he was not an enlightened master. For he totally deluded everyone always about everything!
Jesus was a Jew; this simple fact refutes the guru hypothesis. He never told anyone to convert from Judaism. He said he came to fulfill the law and the prophets, not destroy them. He did not found a new religion; he fulfilled the old one. Despite the polemics between Jews and Christians that we see beginning already in the New Testament and that are still going on, there is not the slightest suggestion that these are two alternative religions or that the Old Testament teachings are false. Exactly the opposite; they are always assumed to be true and quoted as divine authority.
Furthermore, Jesus had no way of learning Eastern religions. He never traveled from his native land. The stories of his doing so are myths that were started centuries later. No documents of any kind even suggest this for the first few centuries A.D. He would not have learned Oriental mysticism in Israel; the Jews were not open, tolerant or pluralistic. If Hindus had learned of Judaism, they probably would have taken an "inclusive" attitude toward it, but if Jews had learned of Hinduism, they certainly would have taken an "exclusive" attitude toward it.
The ultimate philosophical reason for this is that the Jews believe in objective truth (this is one of the reasons they have frequently been in the forefront of science), while Hindus do not. This in turn is because Jews believe in the real distinction between human consciousness and its object, both its supernatural object (God) and its natural object (the material world), but Hindus believe these three things are fundamentally identical. We can hardly think of a more impossible synthesis than one between Judaism and Hinduism - the very synthesis proposed by the "Jesus as guru" theory.
Q. Well this is the first time I've ever got any decent answers to all the objections I've been reading and collecting that dismantle the so-called "divinity" of Christ.
A. As I keep saying, ask questions! Answers are there! But you have to ask...
And as regards these specific answers, I have to credit Ronald Tacelli and Peter Kreeft from whom I've borrowed practically everything. The arsenal is theirs. I only pointed the canons.
Q. So if Jesus is not a liar, a lunatic, a myth or a guru...
A. Then he must be Lord. God. In the full sense of the word.
Q. I need time to digest all of this...
A. Please do!
17th September 2017