Divinity of Jesus

You are missing the paragraph right before the one you quoted For the Jews, hearing Jesus say that he was the son of God was equal to hearing him say that he had the very nature of God. Thus why they called it blasphemy.They would not have called it blasphemy if Jesus was announcing to be an Angel-like divinity, even if he would have claimed to be the only one directly created by God. As long as your not saying you are God, its not blasphemy.

In the Jewish culture of those days, saying 'Son of God' or 'of the very nature of God' means exactly the same thing.You can't come along, two thousands years later, and say: 'Well since this expression is unknown in our culture today, then Jesus is not claiming to be God but only God's son ...' You have to read the Bible from the position of a reader of the time, which knew what this expression really meant.

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You do realize that the divinity of Jesus has historically been a major point of dispute among early Christians?

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It was not in the ''eye-witness'' christians, who had been of the generations who had seen Jesus.The dispute came by when Gnosticism came along in the 2nd and 3rd generationsa afterwards. This arrival of gnosticism (which is similar in someways to the NewAge movement nowadays) was one of the reasons why John wrote his letters near the end of his life.These disputes were settled once and for all (well, supposedly) only during the councils in the years following the death of ConstantineEdited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Yeah well I agree that the normal process of such a movement as christianity is that it will break up in an almost infinite amount of different branches.It happened in the early church after just a few generations from Jesus Christ, and its still happening today.

There was a countroversy on this subject 300 years after Christ, but the idea that Jesus was God was NOT the new kid on the block, it was the contrary. The idea that Jesus wasn't God was, it came with the rise of gnosticismEdited by slevesque, : No reason given.

I would consider the advent of gnosticism in the early churchas pretty much common knowledge for whoever is a bit familiar with the history of christianity.The very first who had Gnostic tendencies where Simon Magnus and Marcion of Sinope. Cerinthus also. One of the main distinction between Gnostic teachings and christian was that they were saying that Jesus was not God, that he did not rise from the dead, some still put him as some sort of divine figure (as Peg does), others said he was just another prophet of Love (as the current New Age movement does)This sort of teachings is absent from every document that relates to the eye-witness generation, the great majority of course being the books in the NT. (I'm not considering obviously Paul as eye-witness)

Ok there may have been a bit of a misunderstanding. The gnostics (and protognostics) were there early, as John seems to be writing to the church to warn them against teachings that can be recognized in gnosticism in his 3 letters. This is about 2-3 generations after the Death of Jesus (around 30, +20years/generation gives around 70-90 years after christ.)This is when the controversy pretty much starts, where some people come to think that Jesus may not be God after all (by that time John is probablyon of the few eye-witness still alive). It will only be officially resolved in the church in the 4th century (300-...) during the counsils.This is sort of a resume of what I've been saying. (or trying) The Gospels are thought to have been written when ... like 30-60 years after the death of Jesus ? (which is logic since it is around that time that eye-witnesses would have started to 'die out' so to speak). With the oldest 'fragments' and manuscripts of these being 25 years after the originals.Considering that the oldest manuscript of Julius Ceasar's Gallic Wars is dated at 1000 years after the original writing, yet no one is doubting its accuracy as an eye-witness account. I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the Gospels as coming from eye-witness sources either.This is not even considering that there are over 24 000 manuscripts of these Gospels dated from every century and epochs. (compared to only ten for Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars)Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

I got to say that I am more then surprised by your aggressive answer .. :S Where did I say that I was doubting Caesar existed ? I don't know if this was intentional or no, but it is a bit of a strawman of what I was saying. The manuscript I was referring to concerning Caesar was his account of the Gallic wars, and that even though the earliest manuscript we have is 1000 years after the original, no one questions its authenticity as being accurate of Caesar's original. This was simply to show that we tend to make the biblical manuscripts pass 'tests' that we don't on other manuscripts. I would agree totally with you, and would even suggest that this last suggestion of yours equally applies on the gospel manuscripts Josephus makes reference to Jesus and even goes to say that he was performing amazing miracles. This is outside proof of the existence of Jesus.Besides, It is not valid to disqualify the gospels as affirmative proof in favor of the existence of Jesus simply because they are the Gospels. They are historical manuscripts of the same sort as any other. The fact that they were elevated to the point of divine inspiration by a religion afterwards does not take away their status of historical document.As another example, How many documents do we have of the existence of Socrate ? Not many, all of the ones we have come from Aristote (Socrate's ''disciple'' if I can use that term) referring to his teachings. And yet I'm sure you do not doubt that Socrate did exist, even though their are far less evidence of the existence of Socrate than Jesus.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

I'm not a professional in historical documents, but there seems to be little to no debate amongst scholars and historians alike about the years of writing of the Gospels.

The case of Jesus's existence is at the very worse, the same as Socrate. Yet I have never encountered anyone in philosophy (nor anywhere else) who doubts Socrate existed.Same situation with Mohammed. We have no proof he existed other than the Qur'an. Same with Bouddha. Yet no one doubts they existed. Same with Jacques Cartier, or many of the egyptians Kings who were recorded by Manetho (who was not contemporary to them) and of which we have no outside proof. Yet no egyptians archaeologist or historian doubt they pretty much all existed.This is all very revealing to the fact that Jesus has to pass tests that are not applied to any other figures in history. + the fact that the eye-witness accounts of Jesus that we do have, also have to pass tests that no other manuscripts have to pass and you can easily figure that the problem is not with the information available, but with the reluctance some skeptics have towards Christianity.

I had the impression you were of the same opinion as Theodoric, who seems to deny the existence of Jesus. Thus why I responded as I would have responded to someone denying the existence of Jesus. And I agree. But having a contemporary source is not an obligation in determining the existence of someone. As I said,l Manetho was not contemporary to a lot of lesser egyptians Kings of whom we have no other evidence then the fact that Manetho put them in his Dynasty records, and yet no egyptian historian doubts their existence even though they have contemporary source. Such a source is very useful and important, but not necessary. You are suggesting an alternative explanation, but I would like to know on what evidence you base this ? I may be wrong, but I have the impression that the best support for your view is that there is not enough proof in support of the existence of the biblical Jesus. (other then the Gospels). Thus at best, we have hear to alternative explanations that have equally no basis. In such cases, applying Occam'S Razor is the way to go, and I would think that doing so would lean towards that Jesus was simply a single person, who acted pretty much as recorded in the gospels in terms of teachings (you may of course dobut the miracle 'parts') I would suggest that the fact that the Gospels were written decades after the death of Jesus (in fact, 3-4 decades) is not the best argument against them being eye-witness accounts, simply because humans can live for decades, and so given the perspective of the text, it is not far-fetched to assume that people contemporary to Jesus lived 3-4 decades after his death ... I find it hard to comprehend that this discussion started off as 'the author of the Gospels are anonymous' and yet here you are talking as if it was known that they never met Jesus. Yet if they are anonymous, how can we know they never met Jesus ? At best ,you could have written 'we do not know if any of the authors ever met him', instead of that first sentence.I find it also intriguing that you say 'despite the perspective of the text'. Which seems to be saying that the perspective of the text is effectively that of an eye-witness account. This perspective of the text, combined with the fact that the dates do not rebute an eye-witness authorship explanation, seems to favor the idea that the authors were eye-witnesses, or had access to eye-witness accounts.If you want to argument otherwise, I think you will have to show either: that the perspective of the text cannot possibly be eye-witness, or that the dates assigned to the Gospels are wrong, and that the real dates make it impossible for an eye-witness author.Furthermore, I know of only one qualified person who advanced the idea that Jesus is largely mythical rather than historical, and it is GA Wells. Yet even he recently (EDIT: in 2003) acknowledged that Jesus was a historical person (not a splinter sect in Jerusalem as you imply, which I have no doubt comes from earlier teachings by Wells which he no longer supports). I would suggest that you follow him in regarding Jesus as a real person also.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

NP for the delay time, I understand it is vacation time hehe You have any names about who those scholars could be ?? I know I named one earlier (GA Wells), who probably has been the most prominent one to argue about the historicity of Jesus, all this debate pretty much stems from him I believe. But as I've also said, even Wells abandoned this idea in 2003 ... Ok, I understant your response now. But I would suggest that you simply answer to what I say and not what others usually say when debating this subject. Of course, and I totally agreed with you, suggesting that this last statement should also be equally applied to any historical documents, even biblical manuscripts.

Ok, I have been reading on this for the entire night and I find a little bit of irony that someone such as you would give into believing something as the christ myth.THis is because, from the historians perspective, there is as much a debate about the existence of Jesus as there is a debate between creationism/evolution inside the scientific community from an evolutionist point of view: there is no debate.There are two major proponents of the christ-myth: GA Wells, who is not a historian but a professor of German (who has recanted his beliefs that Jesus never existed in 2003, and so is not a proponent of this view anymore) and Earl Doherty, who has a Bachelor's degree in history. That is pretty much it. All the arguments from other proponents pretty much come from these two.Opposed to their view is all the rest of the community of historians around the world. This fact by itself is of course no proof about which side is true or not. but it is enough for anyone to have serious doubts about the claims of Wells and Doherty.Here is a link from James Hannan who has a PhD in history, and who discusses the christ-myth:Refuting the Jesus MythIt isn't the most complete, but he defends remarquably well the question at hand: the two references of Jesus by Josephus. Which is in the first part (the other 3 parts, though related, discuss other subjects. But you can read them if you want to)

I found this post of yours very interesting, in the fact that you draw a parallel with science. I will restate what I said earlier: The Jesus Myth is to Historians what creationism is to scientists. There are hundreds of non-christian historians which have access to al the real documents related to this subject, with a career of knowledge on the subject and who are as objective to all this as can be. Yet none of them doubt the existence of Jesus.All you have to defend this view is a professor of German and a student with a Bachelor's degree in history, who are the two major proponents (not the only one, but the major ones with any university studies on the subject)Now of course, I do not intend this to be any kind of proof that Jesus ever lived. It is not a numbers game of course, as you have mentioned. But I say this so that you realize that you are the one proposing the extraordinary claim that Jesus never existed, against the vast consensus made by historians. Not us.EDIT: Of course, I will still make a post about the arguments when I have the time.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Has this debate always been about Jesus 'as potrayed in the Bible' never existed.Because from the beginning I'm arguing that a person called Jesus existed. Has the opposing side changed during the process and added the last 'as potrayed in the Bible' part along the way, or has it been like this from the beginning and I simply misunderstood ... ???