Why was Jesus incarnated when he was?

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

@Vinnie

As a moderator, I feel you should know that we are not allowed to post things on topic here.

LOL As a moderator you should be careful with the sarcasm. I try to at least use italics when I don’t actually mean what I say.

[Vinnie]

I thought it was blatantly obvious it was sarcasm. Tough crowd.

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

It was obvious and it was hilarious.

But yes… it IS a tough crowd.

[Roy (Roy (Listener twice correct))]

@Daniel_Coats

Jesus was incarnated when He was so that the world would have opportunity to hear the Gospel. Had he come earlier, the world would not have been united so the Gospel could spread. Alexander the Great and the Pax Romana made that possible.

But wouldn’t that have been better achieved by Jesus being in the centre of one of the great empires, in a place where he could have had more influence, rather than in a minor province?

@Daniel_Coats

It’s also interesting that the vast majority of the world’s people have lived after the incarnation, which is a big step toward answering the question about what about those who have never heard the Gospel.

That’s simply not true. Only about half the people who have ever lived were born after Jesus. The time it took for the Gospel to spread means that far more people died without having a chance of hearing it (including a lot of chidren) than otherwise.

There’s a neat graphic here.

[Vinnie]

@Roy

But wouldn’t that have been better achieved by Jesus being in the centre of one of the great empires, in a place where he could have had more influence, rather than in a minor province?

It’s the mustard seed and the first shall be last. Very fitting. I consider it beautiful that Jesus was born in an insignificant hamlet in a backwater province of the Roman Empire and his short ministry ran through humble and unexpected beginnings (a Roman cross) to conquering the Roman Empire and spreading to the entire world and becoming the backbone of the modern Western world.

Vinnie

[Mervin_Bitikofer]

@Roy

But wouldn’t that have been better achieved by Jesus being in the centre of one of the great empires, in a place where he could have had more influence, rather than in a minor province?

To tag onto Vinnie’s already good answer above … God often chooses to work through less likely agents because if he chose the strongest or the biggest empires, etc. then nobody gives God credit - they just assume the big bad empire pulled it off. Which is already why early warning signs should have been seen when Christianity became the “religion of empire” back in Constantine’s time - a lesson that many evangelicals in America will eventually be learning for themselves all over again - the hard way. God doesn’t like it when people get excited about horses and chariots (or guns and domination) rather than being excited about God as revealed by Christ.

[Roy (Roy (Listener twice correct))]

@Daniel_Coats

Jesus was incarnated when He was so that the world would have opportunity to hear the Gospel. Had he come earlier, the world would not have been united so the Gospel could spread. Alexander the Great and the Pax Romana made that possible.

A further thought - if Biblical history is taken as correct, surely the ideal time would have been just after the flood, when the world was really united, before languages were confused and people scattered?

Then everyone in the world has the opportunity to hear the gospel directly, with no language barriers and no need for worldwide dissemination.

[Apistos]

What, when there were 8 people?

[Roy (Roy (Listener twice correct))]

No, about a century after that, just before Babel, when there were about (checks YEC population growth curves) 40.

[Apistos]

Come on! There must have been OOM 10,000! In a century. They bred like rabbits, lived for centuries, zero infant mortality. I mean, you’d need all ten thousand doing nothing but building that tower. How high was a challenge to God do you think? It would have to have been a spiral ramp, at least two good wagon widths wide for the track, up and down. This calls for a spreadsheet! Nah. Wonder what GPT thinks? You’d have to haul all the stuff to the growing top wouldn’t you? Spiral down. No?

[Roy (Roy (Listener twice correct))]

If everyone has 20 children, and they all survive, after 100 years the population would be… about 8,880.

[Apistos]

Hmmm. Conservative. ‘4 couples and every female breeds once a year from age 15, including all females born for the next 85 years, what’s the population after 100, with no mortality and menopause at 55?’ 26,000. 8,000 men over 15. Accumulate 400,000 man years. Of quarrying and driving ox carts. Hmmm. Some sort of second order differential equation is called for at least! For optimum quarrying and construction.

Wow. 8 million cubic metres of rock. Using a segmented core tower could reach 600m!

God will have noticed that surely!

[Terry_Sampson]

@Roy

That’s simply not true. Only about half the people who have ever lived were born after Jesus. The time it took for the Gospel to spread means that far more people died without having a chance of hearing it (including a lot of chidren) than otherwise.

Demographers can count births; they can’t count opportunities for grace.

[Apistos]

How do you count them? What counts as failure? Weighed in the scales of Ma’at and found damned?

[Apistos]

@Terry_Sampson

There is only heaven. Unfortunately, heaven is hell if you don’t want to be there.

Then Love doesn’t operate. Only Incompetence.

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@Roy

Only about half the people who have ever lived were born after Jesus. The time it took for the Gospel to spread means that far more people died without having a chance of hearing it (including a lot of chidren) than otherwise.

I don’t know if this is apocryphal, but I have heard Europeans were surprised the people in the Americas had never heard of Jesus.

Added in edit: However, there was a Mr. Smith that had a slightly different view.

[Terry_Sampson]

• I’ve nearly finished watching an entertaining (according to Wikipedia) “an American psychological thriller television series created by Graham Roland based on the Leaphorn & Chee novel series by Tony Hillerman. via Netflix, called Dark Winds. Joseph Leaphorn and Jim Chee are Navajo Tribal Police and there are very interesting Navajo cultural and religious elements incorporated into the story lines of all three seasons so far.
• In the latest, “Dark Winds season 3 is the Ye’iitsoh (Big Giant), which initially appears to Joe Leaphorn as a manifestation of his guilt over killing B.J. Vines. Through a hallucinatory state caused by a tranquilizer dart, Joe is forced to confront both this supernatural entity and the real-world human monsters behind the season’s crimes, ultimately realizing that while he was haunted by the memory of killing, the actual threats were human.
• Joe Leaphorn’s father, Henry Leaphorn, just told Joe (in a dream sequence, of course): “There are no monsters, just bad men, and bad men who kill them.” Is that the Navajo version of Original Sin? I don’t know, I’m not Navajo. But I think it’s fun for a moment to speculate.
• Question for you, Earthling. Have you ever met a Monster who wasn’t incompetent?

[Apistos]

Loved it. Loved Coyote Waits 30 years ago [too].

[jpm (Phil McCurdy)]

Have not seen it, but have read all the Tony Hillerman books. good stuff. Maybe If I see enough good stuff to watch on Netflix, I’ll subscribe, for a few months anyway.

[Terry_Sampson]

Fourth season coming out in February.