Christians: Who is Jesus (pbuh) exactly according to the Bible?

Since Jesus never wrote anything down we have no idea what were his words and what changes were made by the scribes who wrote "his words" down several decades after his death.

In line with this comment, Skeptics will stress the meaning of the word "hate" and insist that the word must be read literally, and that Jesus is truly preaching hate. But in fact, the "softening" is correct to do -- and is perfectly in line with the context of the ancient world, and the Jewish culture in particular. For a background on the use of extreme and hyperbolic language in the Bible, I direct the reader first to my foundational essay on this subject.

Abraham Rihbany (The Syrian Christ, 98f) points to the use of "hate" in the Bible as an example of linguistic extreme in an Eastern culture. There is no word, he notes, for "like" in the Arabic tongue. "...To us Orientals the only word which can express any cordial inclination of approval is 'love'."

The word is used even of casual acquaintances. Extreme language is used to express even moderate relationships. Luke 14:26 falls into a category of "extreme language," the language of absoluteness used to express a preference, and may refer to disattachment, indifference, or nonattachment without any feelings of revulsion involved.

To seal this matter completely, let's look at some parallel materials which prove our point. The closest example comes from Genesis 29:30-1: And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years. And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.

Here, "hated" is clearly used synonymously with one who is loved less. Let it be added that if Jacob hated Leah in a literal way, it is hardly believable that he would consent to take her as his wife at all. (See also Judges 14:16 and Deut.

21:15-17.) Now here is another example from Jesus, Luke 16:13: No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Such extremes of feeling would be atypical, but the extremes are not meant to be taken literally; the point is that one master will get more dedicated labor than the other. Now let's move into some secular works with the same sort of hyperbolic language.

Fitzmeyer's Lukan commentary offers this example from Poimandes 4:6: If you do not hate your body first, O child, you will not be able to love yourself. Would critics suppose that this teaches literal hatred of the physical body? It does not -- it emphasizes the need to give preference to the whole self before the body alone.

Literal hate of the body would have us cutting it with razors or hitting it with blunt objects -- an extreme practiced in some Eastern faiths, but not among the Greeks. Here is another example from a war song in the Poetae Lyrici Graeci (see James Denney, "The Word 'Hate' in Lk. 14:26," Expository Times 21, 41-42): it is said that in battle, men "must count his own life his enemy for the honor of Sparta" -- is this a literal hatred of one's own life being taught?

No! It is emphasizing the need to make one's life secondary for Sparta's sake. Here's a final example from Epictetus 3.3.5: "The good is preferable to every intimate relation."

This is just a more abstract version of Luke 14:26! Those who think that Jesus is preaching literal and misogynist hate in this verse are anachronizing.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.