On the Human Knowledge of Christ, Part 2

      "Unless he was human to the lowest depths of his conscious and unconscious life, he was not truly human at all." John Knox said this and then went on to declare that we can't really say that Jesus was sinless without separating him from true manhood.  If, in any respect, even in sinning, Jesus did not share with us , he only seemed to be human.

     Aside from rejecting the idea that Jesus ever sinned (see Hebrews 2:17-18; 4:15), I must also quarrel with Knox on another point.  He seems to take the viewpoint that sin is an attribute of human nature.  An attribute is an essential characteristic of a thing or person which cannot be altered  and still have the one to which it is attributed remain the same person or thing.

     Sin is not an attribute of human nature.  It is a gangrene attacking human nature; it is not essential to it.  Jesus, in His life, showed for all time that it is possible to be sinless and fully human at the same time.

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     The question of Jesus' human knowledge has been presented as have been several possible approaches to the discussion.  IT would now be fruitful to begin our study by examining several possible sources of Jesus' human knowledge, for the time being ignoring and supernatural source.

     P. J. Temple says that there were three major sources of knowledge open to every Israelite; cultural traditions, nature, and the Scriptures.  It is obvious from His actions and His teachings that Jesus was intimately familiar with the Law and the Prophets, the Psalms, and Daniel.

     At least one scholar, the Unitarian theologian, Charles Francis Potter, makes much larger claims for Jesus' education.  He feels that Jesus obviously knew classical Hebrew and the commonly spoken Aramaic as well as the surrounding culture's Koine Greek.

     With this supposed knowledge of Greek "Jesus could ransack some of the chief depositories of religious books in Galilee.  These repositories were in the private houses of well-to-do people, in the meeting places of various religious circles or sects whose books were held in common, as well as in the synagogues."  Potter comes to dubious conclusion; Jesus became an Essene from studying their literature and that Christianity is an Essene sect.