Certainly all that encompasses a person's experience and culture colors his/her perception and understanding of what is happening around him. There have been great thinkers throughout history. The ancient ones of the Old Testament had profound thoughts and struggled to comprehend as is evident in all of the Old Testament writings. I think those err who try to put any concept related to the Scriptures or Judaism or Christianity into a box and say here: THIS is the way it is.
Consider Socrates who is credited with being the Father of Philosophy. He left no writings of any kind, so all we know of him and his thoughts are via writings of his students, the most famous of course being Plato. Diogenes, who inspired Stoicism that greatly influenced Hellenistic thought, left no writings of his own but inspired a great school of thought. Nor did Buddha or Pyrrho or even Alexander the Great himself without whom the Hellenistic 'revival' likely would never have happened. Nor did Cyrus of Persia who, enlightened himself, opened the door for new philosophies and schools of thought to develop paving the way for an Alexander the Great to gain a foothold.
All of these great men contributed to the whole of the times and cultures to follow, but what we know of them is through the eyes of those who followed them. And those who followed were not always of a single mind or unity of thought.
I think maybe Jesus wanted no writings of his own or even copies of the original manuscripts of scripture to divert the people's attention from the relationship with Jesus Himself and the teachings of the Holy Spirit available to all who will receive it. People being people, they would tend to worship and make 'gods' of the objects themselves given opportunity to do so.
We have no extant biblical texts preserved through history, how would we have something from Socrates 450-500 years earlier? Where's the evidence he never wrote anything down? That said, many disagree on what exactly he did say and some claim Plato used his name to further his own philosophy.
To say Jesus didn't want accurate information so people could receive the Holy Spirit is mind boggling. It makes no sense but that's the kind of things one must do to hold onto their faith. The more one learns and thinks the greater the challenge.
??? The evidence that we have no writings from Socrates is that we have no writings or copied writings from Socrates. Nobody claims to have had any writings from Socrates. Nobody who has written about Socrates has referred to any writings of Socrates. Just as nobody who has written about Jesus has referred to any writings of Jesus. Ditto for Buddha and the others. Given all that, it is reasonably safe to say these people left us no writings. What some theorize about all that is irrelevent to the fact that there is no record of any kind of any writings provided from certain historical figures.
Now speaking of people not reading people's posts carefully, I will again object to my posts being mischaracterized or misrepresented. I said nothing even remotely close to your statement: "To say Jesus didn't want accurate information so people could receive the Holy Spirit is mind boggling." So again I would appreciate your correcting that by acknowledging that I did not say it.
The only reason Christian and Jewish writings occurred is due to religious devotion and were copied from one generation to the next. Most certainly the words of Jesus would be preserved. You are suffering from cognitive dissonance.
I would appreciate a little less drama and a little more honesty from you. You said
"I think maybe Jesus wanted no writings of his own or even copies of the original manuscripts of scripture to divert the people's attention from the relationship with Jesus Himself and the teachings of the Holy Spirit available to all who will receive it."
Which is what I paraphrased. No rational thinking could hold that view. The fact that we are talking about the salvation of eternal souls and not just philosophical mutterings makes it all the more unreasonable.
The fact that the early church was divided on something as major as salvation for the Jews or all of man shows just how important it would have been.
But it didn't happen because the Jesus story was cobbled together from anecdotal accounts, philosophy and Hebrew application of OT in contemporary life, which is still done today. The earlier writings of Philo demonstrate it quite well, ignoring it doesn't make it go away.
