• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Jesus Christ: The Only Son Of God?

A

Anonymous

Guest
It's my understanding that Jesus Christ was God's son, in whom God was well pleased. As apparently God pointed out during Jesus' baptism.

So.. since when was it said that Jesus was the only son of God? I thought that because we were created by God then we must all be the sons of God.

It appears that it was Jesus' followers who labelled him as the only son of God. Do any of you agree with this? That question is to Christians as well. I don't see any reason why not beleiving that Jesus is the only son of God can prohibit them from following Jesus' teachings, in other words, being a Christian.
 
AdamRang said:
So.. since when was it said that Jesus was the only son of God? I thought that because we were created by God then we must all be the sons of God.
Click to expand...

My Quaker beliefs (That we are all equal in the eyes of God, and God being in all things and all) lead me to conclude the same. So by not believing that Jesus is the son of God anymore (or less) than anyone else is , I'm technically no longer a Christian. So, Christian beliefs have lead me to reason my way out of Christianity.
It is however, very possible to follow Jesus' teachings without believing him the son of God. He never claimed to be himself. I know lots of modern Christians who think along similar lines.
 
Do most Christians ever actually bother to read the Bible? You'd think a lot more people would have noticed that by now...
 
I certainly don't. It's got too many long words and no bloody pictures.
 
re. 'son of God'

Depends what you mean by 'son of'...

There is the eastern use of the phrase, also found across the Atlantic in the phrase 'son of a bitch'- there is no literal subtext, rather it is a metaphor to describe behaviour. Therefore, Jesus as 'son of God' describes a belief in his being in some way like God, not that God was his biological father. The title 'Son of God' (capital S) implies that he was more God-like than anyone else.

The other side of this is the concept of the demi-god, a tradition which was no doubt overlaid on the earliest Christian belief when it ceased to be a Jewish phenomenon.
 
I'm not sure the extent to which Christ himself proclaimed his divinity--and it should be remembered that he did pray "Our Father, who art in Heaven..." I am, however, decently conversant in Christian doctrine.

Accordingly, we are created in God's image, and can be rightly called "God's children." Christ is often referred to as the "Son of God," but the basic point IMHO is that he was God made manifest. Christians believe in original sin; that we are born stained and helpless. It is only through the intervention of the divine intercessory known as Christ that we are offered salvation. To assume that we stand on par with Christ is to obviate his role as savior.

Buddha, on the other hand, said that each of us (and all things, for that matter), have an immanent Buddha-nature. We ourselves can take responsibility for our own enlightenment, through the discipline of mindfulness and the understanding of arising co-dependence. It is worth pointing out that Buddha refused to be worshipped, saying "I can give you a raft to cross the stream, but it doesn't make sense to carry the raft with you once on land" (paraphrasing here). The very word Buddha means "one who is awakened."

One can argue whether Christ himself intended to be the savior of the world, or if this was addended at a later date to complete his divine "pedigree." Nonetheless, Christian doctrine is unambivalant.
 
Re: re. 'son of God'

therion said:
Depends what you mean by 'son of'...
The other side of this is the concept of the demi-god, a tradition which was no doubt overlaid on the earliest Christian belief when it ceased to be a Jewish phenomenon.
Click to expand...

Amun, I mean, amen ...
 
According to Luke(?) John the Baptist was concieved in the same way as Jesus. He also happened to be Jesus' cousin on his mother's side, (I believe), so the same mix genetically, if you like.

I always read the "Son of God" as more "Heir of God"
 
'Ooh, you look rough, fancy an heir of the God...?'

Wouldn't that imply that God could die...?
 
...Or God could abdicate, after all, Jesus became a very big part of the whole Heaven/Judgement thing. The creator passing the family business along???

Here's a few things you find if you read the Bible:

*God is fallible. He feels remorse for causing the flood.

*God has physical form. Moses was allowed to see him, but only his "back-parts"

*God buried Moses himself (I think it Moses) - look it up

No wonder the ancient Astronaut thing popped up. Is there any miracle in the Bible that couldn't be faked now, or just done? Especially to primitive people? Oh except the thing with the three-day-dead people...
 
JackSkellington said:
Oh except the thing with the three-day-dead people...
Click to expand...

That was probably the easiest one! Before the advent of modern medical technology, not to mention modern embalming, people were buried alive all the time. It's not that hard to resurrect somebody who wasn't really dead in the first place.

Nonny
 
JackSkellington said:
...the thing with the three-day-dead people...
Click to expand...
Which people were these?

In the case of JC, he was supposed to have died late Friday afternoon, and was 'resurrected' very early on Sunday. By my reckoning, that's well under two days. (Which just goes to show that Christians can't count.)
 
Lazarus had been dead 3 days, I believe, and he did stinketh.

Jesus never got to the stinkething stage, as he died on the cross and was taken down and away within a day (Good Friday). On sunday morning, if my memory serves correct he was found missing from the tomb by some of the women, and appeared in the Garden of Gethsemone. He then kept appearing and disappearing until the ascension 40 days later.

Jesus spent comparatively little time on the cross, and his body was removed straight away, where I believe he was attended to by monks. I'm sure everyone's familiar with the theories that Christ actually slept (was drugged by the "vinegar" on the sponge) and that the spear that pierced his side was used to release fluid that would otherwise had drowned his lungs. He was then supposedly healed using the much speculated secret medical know-how of the Essen monks, with whom Jesus studied in the desert. I believe the relevant FT article's recently been added to the site.

So we can see our way around that one, too...

Certainly what we imagine when we think of pillars of fire and burning bushes could be rigged up. Remember audiences ran from theatres at early film footage of trains because it looked so real to those who'd never witnessed moving pictures and feared being crushed, and people believed stop-motion images of dinosaurs from Conan Doyle's "The Lost World" to be genuine a few years later. How much would it take to astound the civilisations of 4,000 years ago?

It's a fair question... However, maybe you the greatness in such acts depends on how much greatness you want to see.... When all the info's secondhand, we all imagine those pillars of fire to burn bigger, or brighter, or less so than the next man...
 
The pillar of fire (by night, before dawn) and of cloud (by day) which led the Israelites out of Egypt is argued to have been a large comet (Clube and Napier, "The Cosmic Serpent", 1982).

Then, after the comet passed perihelion, it would appear in the evening sky instead: "The Angel of God... The pillar of cloud changed station from the front to the rear of them..."

Sounds convincing to me.

But now some scholars are even arguing that the Exodus never took place, and Moses never existed, or was two different people - the further back in the mists of time these things get, the more alternative theories people seem to think up!

I believe all the theories are right - they just didn't all occur in this universe...
 
It's fair to say that many people find the whole holy trinity thing tres confusing. How can Jesus say (in response to MDs comment) that he is the son of god, if he's god made flesh - surely that makes him god, not the son. I've recently been wondering about the John the Baptist thing, is Jesus only possessed with the godhead when the holy spirit enters him when he's baptised in the Jordon? If so that put's pay to the virgin (ahem - young girl in aramaic) birth and continuity of godhood from birth (and many early, apocryphal miracles). Also, why at that point, and what was John's part in it?

Agree that the 'son of' title is lightly to be merely a slangish turn of phrase, and there's much debate amongst scholar's as to whether he ever directly says he IS the son of god. The falibility of translation over time makes it likely (IMHO) that he never said such a thing, as he rarely makes any presumption of godhead, and those who subscribe to the ur-testament Q theory it would seem that a few mis-placed letters could twist this from a casual observation that we are all sons of god to him being sole heir to the throne.

It's funny, but I posited the 'sleep drug' > resurrection link years ago at Uni, without any knowledge of the essenes. My theory was the 20 odd years where J has no recorded history were spent in the company of fakirs in India, who knew of herbal / meditational ways to induce death-like symptoms. one has to remember that the roman military had very little medical knowhow (if any) and wouldn't have been able to distinguish between extreme shallow breathing, slow heart rate etc and actual death.
 
one has to remember that the roman military had very little medical knowhow (if any) and wouldn't have been able to distinguish between extreme shallow breathing, slow heart rate etc and actual death.
Click to expand...

I agree entirely dot23.

The crucified were usually left for the birds, as recorded by Horace, Petronius, Seneca and Arttemidorus. Being slaves, they generally had no-one interested in claiming their bodies.
For those claiming bodies for burial, however, there were rules (presumably to cover the aforementioned lack of medical knowledge among the regular troops). One of these regulations is recorded by Quintilian is the 1st century AD: "Percussos sepeliri carnifax non vetat" - "The executioner does not forbid the burial of those who have been pierced." This is what appears to have happened in the case of Jesus, prior to the claiming of his body by his followers.
Origen tells us that this blow of the spear was sometimes given shortly after crucifixion, more or less to put the crucified out of their misery. Writing on crucifixion in the 3rd century AD, Sextus Empiricus tells us "the wound in the heart is the cause of death".
If we are to believe John's eyewitness account, Jesus was already dead at this stage. If John was mistaken, the spear certainly would have finished Jesus off anyway.
 
There is a theory that Joseph of Arimathea actually masterminded the recue of Jesus. The drugged vinegar has already been mentioned, and a bribed Roman soldier (Joseph was a rich man) could have given Jesus just a superficial wound with the spear.

Hence the 'early death', and the recovery of the 'body' in time to carry out healing.

If so, and Jesus did survive, he took great care to keep out of the hands of the Romans afterwards. Hence his low profile and the possibly disguised visits to the disciples, who sometimes failed to recognise him.
 
I think a lot has been lost in translation: most of the Bibles in the English speaking world have been dragged from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English,: how better to mangle syntax and vocabuary?

The example given about "virgin" meaning a young girl in Aramaic is a perfect illustration: a lot of languages have multiple meanings for words, depending on the emphasis or context to provide the meaning intended - would like to know whether Hebrew, (especially with it's lack of vowels) is subject to this kind of ambivalence.

Also, of course, English has undergone a lot of semantic change - e.g. "girl" used to mean any young person, male or female, "nice" used to mean stupid, etc etc, and that's just in a few hundred years. Any 2000 year old text, dragged through 4 languages, each with their own grammatical foibles and rules, with only rough equivalents in the vocabulary to which to translate, and then with inevitable semantic change, is going to look nothing like the original no matter how careful the transcription process.

Can't imagine any of the big Christian churches would be too keen on a new translation from the original Hebrew (supposing these documents were available in the first place - most of the Gospels are based on Greek accounts written a couple of hundred years later) as they probably suspect the subtle, and overt changes that would ensue would leave them, the respective churches, looking a bit daft....
 
CF translations for the Bible... The King James version is pretty accurate, as it goes, since James insisted that Greek and Hebrew scholars were used to consult exant texts. The language was 'flowered up' a little, giving the very Shakespearian edge to the proceedings, but as far as was possible the original meaning was preserved, at least within common understanding of the scholars doing the consulting.

The New World bible is a pretty gutless translation, of indifferent accuracy...

CF Lord's Prayer... another very Egyptian prayer, with clear parallels in the Pyramid and Coffin texts :) but that's being covered in another thread.

CF Death on the cross... Doesn't the Koran claim that Jesus was 'body doubled' for the crucifixion? There again, the historic validity of that document is questionable...


8¬)
 
The King James version is pretty accurate, as it goes, since James insisted that Greek and Hebrew scholars were used to consult exant texts.
Click to expand...

Yes - but I was given to understand that the "extant texts" were somewhat thin on the ground, and the majority of the New Testament was derived from the greek stuff penned a couple of hundred years after Christ.

I'm not taking any position here - just like to guage the accuracy lingusitically.
 
Yup, dead right... copies of the Torah were pretty common, but the greek texts used did tend to be copies of copies, and of course, it was the post Constantine editions, in which the Helenistic/ Pauline 'divnity' element was heavily emphasised. I wasn't disagreeing with your assement, merely adding to it :)

8¬)
 
Thanks for the info, Harlequin: which thread is the one dealing with Coffin & Pyramid texts?

stu
 
One of the derailed Christian threads by the Rabbi has started discussing egytian influences on Christian creed... not sure whic one it is now...sorry



8¬)
 
are you referring to this one? : why christians need rabbis

Some good points, just like to add to Stu's point - the very reason why the discovery of the dead sea scroll has lead to such wild speculation, conspiracy theory and genuine obfuscation by the catholic church is this very reason. they are historically from the very period immediately after the (alleged) death of Christ (c. 70 -200 AD) are from a community who has deep ties with the temple of solomon and the apostles.

If these texts were internationally available for translation (as was the original intention of the international, multi faith body set up to study them before the vatican pulled strings and had all protestants, atheists and jews removed from the project) I'm sure the position of most xians that Jesus was the 'son of god' would be shaken. As it is many of the original parchments are now in the possession of the Vatican, and may never see the light of day.

As someone who believes in the validity of christs message and the fallacy of the miracles and resurrection (a secular christian?) I think it's a great shame that important social messages such as those of the new testament are cloaked in 'mumbo jumbo' and accessible only to those who leave scepticiem and rationality behind and embrace the improbable. Leave ritual and dogma to the vatican and let us read the real words of the Essene 'Teacher' of the dead sea scrolls (presumed by some to be Jesus after the crucifiction) - it might yet lead to humanities intelectual salvation!
 
Mis-translation is only half of the Bibles troubles. The Bible has been changed so many times over the years as different people 'adapted' the stories in order to suit there own beleif system. Take a look at these . Makes you wonder how poeple can insist that the Bible is the word of God.
 
Adam,

We then drift back to the near infinite capacity for the human ape to fool itself. If you ask a believer about this you usually get the answer 'its a matter of faith', which, to this writer, smacks of 'I really don't want to think about that' but I may just be a cynic :)
8¬)

BTW didn't someone find a US university with the DSS in microfilm form from the 50s, so the cartel was broken?
 
AdamRang wrote:
Take a look at these
Click to expand...

Oh joy! An Islamic prosletysing site! Browse it at your peril, very convincing and you might end up a convert to Islam :rolleyes:

Apart from the prosletysing (don't we get enough of this already from Jehovah's Witnesses etc?), there's the usual boring ream of "contadictions" (sic) from the bible.
It has thousands of 'errors' you know, literally thousands! For example, look at Romans 1.21. Two errors in one verse. Those Christians can't even decide on whether one word is "all'" or "alla" (translated 'but'; we're talking in the original Greek here, the text of which ain't supported on the message board). Another word they can't decide on is "eucharisteesan". Some manuscripts say "eeucharisteesan". Both words are translated 'were thankful' it's like being unable to decide between "can't" and "cannot" - but an error is an error is an error! And that's just one verse! I'm off to the mosque! :D

I ain't got the time nor the inclination to go through all the "errors" at http://www.islamicresources.com/comparative_religions/contradictions.htm. I am not a believer in verbal plenary inspiration of the Judaeo-Christian (apologies to the Rabbi) scriptures myself, but people talking s**te about any ancient texts about which they know f**k all in order to promote THEIR world view really gets up my nose.
As a non-practising Roman Catholic I don't suggest you convert to anything nor believe in anything other than what you honestly can trust as true, and if the Christian worldview is true then (by my humble reckoning of the facts of that creed) that ain't anyone's concern but yours anyway (sorry you Evangelical readers!).

I enjoyed looking at the first "contadiction". Suppose you can't blame some devout Muslim who's into it enough to put up a website for not attempting to get to the bottom of this one. It being a matter of faith, he probably didn't really want to think about it. I on the other hand, did.

"Matthew 2:1 Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king
(So Jesus was born between the years 37 B.C. and 4 B.C..)

Luke 2:1-7And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. ([And] this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)... And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
(so Jesus was born about the year 7 C.E. More than ten years later)"

First of all he uses the notoriously unreliable KJV. Had he cared to look at a good translation of the Greek text, we would be reading "This registration first occured under the governing of Syria by Quirinius" ('under' and 'by' are inserted to make sense of the Greek)
"Cyrenius" is the KJV translation of "Quirinius" (they 'latinised' the Greek, detailed explanantion available but I trust you'll all trust me on that). He is mentioned by the historians Tacitus and Suetonius, appearing to have rose through the military ranks from a humble birth to his attain great position on merit.
Quirinius - who ten years later was certainly governor (legatus) of Syria - at the time of the birth of Jesus held high office in Syria, either as praeses (governor) or quaestor (imperial commissioner). The Greek word rendered "governing" (eegemoneuotos) by the English translation would have been used for either of these (not to mention a few other)important offices.
Also, none of the early opponents of the Christians (i.e., Celsus, Porphyry) impugn the accuracy of Luke on this point, which would be odd given their living so close to the time in question.
What really gets me though is how people can quip about the church councils editing the scriptures in one breath and denounce the "errors" within in the next. Surely the councils wouldn't have overlooked the leaving in of such "contradictions" - or maybe people think they were REALLY thick :confused:
Not to say you won't find errors and contradictions in there if you look hard and long enough (especially at the KJV), and read the literature as you would a 20th century textbook - which it patently is not. Besides its such a waste of time to read to support what you already "know", not to mention a narrow-minded way to approach ancient literature!
 
To be honest, I had absolutley no idea it came from an Islamic 'prosletysing' (sic) site and I don't see why that should steer people away from the information they provided. We should be mindful of their agenda but not judge them by it.

hospitaller, you can not argue that the Bible has been altered many times through out history and if it makes you feel any better, so has the Koran.
 
Hospitaller - the original compilers of the bible were surely fallible men of uncertain degrees of learning, and perhaps wouldn't have had the same editorial rigour that we might possess today. Agreed many contradictory statements can be presumed to be the result of bad translation, copying, etc - but it is widely agreed that sections of the new and old testaments were edited by the early church to their own agendas. The editing of daniel to 'predict' the coming of Jesus rather than another messianic figure (shown by translation from DSS materials), the differences between the gospels and the lack of information about jesus' formative teenage and early twenties years - all these facts suggest that the bible that has been passed down to us is not the whole story and that the early church fathers were intent on a process of diefication of christ, of rejection of jewish history and the setting up of an all male preisthood (thanks to the tireless efforts of arch-misogynist Paul) despite Jesus' equanimity towards women.
I believe a full and unblinking revision of early scripture, including DSS and other surviving materials, would put Jesus into better historical context, clear up many misconstructions about his life and help us to better understand him as a man (or indeed group of men - for it's not inconceivable that there was more than one christ figure). I would sincerely (as I mentioned earlier) like to see jesus 'resurrected' as an anti-establishment philosopher/ activist who's knowledge, wisdom and philanthropy changed world history, rather than a hoodwinking conjuror or devine being. Why must I accept God to accept Jesus as real? Didn't he say something along the lines of 'the kingdom of god lies within us'?

On a slightly different tack, who finds the progress of God through the bible a little strange? In many religions the gods are at least consistent (even if they're consistantly inconsistant - i.e. the greek gods' human traits of greed etc flaring up much as they would in man) - the biblical god has a severe personality disorder. All loving creator, wilful trickster, harsh judger, destroyer of the world, saviour of one band of nomads - destroyer of another, random acts of punishment, smiting, revealing yet mysterious, then god of love in jesus, then god who destroys the world. Wa'appen? Don't bother trotting out the 'god works in mysterious ways' line, I've heard it before - I want to know how anyone can pray to a god that has never proved consistent, seems to only have a place in heavan for Jews one minute then everyone the next, who forbids idolatory yet allows the worship of saints. It doesn't add up folks!

If we need any convincing that the god of the old testament and jesus' message are chalk and cheese (for blessed are the cheesemakers ;)) look to the destruction of sodom and gomorah (what is gomory? does it involve goats?) for fornication versus Jesus' protection of mary magdalene the prostitute.
 
"...This whole concept of 'Faith', of believing in something that isn't fucking there, was invented by a Man to cover up the cracks in the 'Christianity' he cobbled together with the Romans.
"This whole God thing comes from the days when our brains weren't as connected up as they are now, and we all Hallucinated Daily!"
Spider Jerusalem, Transmetropolitan #6, by Warren Ellis

Niles "Meat Gun" Calder
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top