Weird that JC in on HN. Completely odd premise to me. I wasn't aware people discounted the gospel of John when considering this. Here are some of basics as I understand them (as a christian):
* OT prophecies refer to Jesus as "God with us" and "mighty God" [1][2]
* He said "I am in the Father and the Father is in me ..." [3]
* He said "If you had known me, you would have known my Father also." [3]
* He said "I and the Father are one." and immediately afterwards, jews attempted to stone him, citing "because you, being a man, make yourself God." [4]
I don't know about 'discounting' but John wasn't composed until well after virtually anyone who might have encountered Jesus personally was already dead, near the end of the first century AD. Not exactly the type of source that can be relied upon for accurate, direct quotes.
>If Jesus had not been declared God by his followers, his followers would've remained a sect within Judaism — a small Jewish sect, and if that was the case it would not have attracted a large number of gentiles.
It's interesting he raises that point because in Islam Jesus is considered a prophet and explicitly not God and in doing so tries to establish the argument that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all the same religion from the same source but that the differences are a result of changes (human error or addition) over time. Hence, while being the most recent of the monotheistic religions, Muslims argue that its a return to the 'original' religion of Abraham, Moses, Jesus etc.
Bahá'ís, a more recent monotheistic world religion, similarly believe that Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Krisha, the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh are all messengers or manifestations of God to humanity that are sent by Him at different times and in different places with a specific message, teachings and law system for the cultural evolutionary stage and needs of the society in which they appear. In this sense, these religions (and here religion means what these prophets send and not what humanity ends up doing with it) are really like different stages of one religion, one eternal process, since they all provide from God and have the same purpose. It is indeed interesting how each of the religions confirms the divinity and the truth of its predecessors and how their adherents fail to recognize the posterior prophets.
Islam is a really bad example, since it's an extremely late entry in the whole history of God, as such it is not a good basis to study the God concept at all. If you want to scientifically validate the existence of an eternal God it makes a lot of sense to go for the oldest sources, and the oldest sources are the pentateugh (the first 5 books of the bible). There is precious little evidence the quran as a book even existed before the 19th century (some stories can be traced back to ~800 AD, but they are copies of pages of the Arameic bible, they are not unique to the quran. Also the national library of Turkey and some organisation in Baghdad claim to have older qurans but they won't show them to anyone. Several articles by an ex-keeper of that book in Turkey indicate that this is because there are significant differences). Despite how arabic script looks, arabic is actually not that far removed from greek (as in there exists a literal transliteration between arabic and greek that reduces the language difference to vocabulary, more or less). The older qurans aren't even in Arabic, they're kufic (which is a dialect of Arameic, and "just happens" to be the dialect a significant part of the bible is written in. Long story short : the quran is an especially badly made copy of the Arameic new testament with significant amended by a successful warlord with Jewish heritage)
But if you look at real early texts you will find no mention of God. So how do you arrive from the early books to God ? Well, easy : anything expressed in one of the passive tenses refers to God(s) (except where it really doesn't make sense). Meaning in the really old portions of the bible (we actually have old versions of the bible, in contrast to the quran), you will not find a sentence like "God made it rain", instead you will find "It was raining" and that is currently getting translated using God. There are other factors that make matters even more confusing.
Even in competing religions' texts you will find this. The Greek religions for example also do this. Until the late Roman republic you almost never find any reference to direct action of any of the Greek/Roman Gods. Rather you will find references that look a lot like today's "lady luck was smiling on him". In stories you will find that, for example, a king "felt inspired by Ares", which I'm sure you can translate for yourself. Or "Ares smiled on the king's forces", indicating he won (note that Greek/Roman Gods were not really part of a pantheon. They are more like "patron saints" of specific families or other groups of people. For example, when there's a battle between Sparta and Athens, either Ares "smiles" or Athena does, meaning this indicates which side won (extremely confusing the first time you read that. You read a story of a battle, with lots of descriptions of fights between generals, heroes, etc. Then suddenly "Ares smiled" and it starts describing logistics of returning the army to the Greek mainland. First time you'll be sitting there "wait, wasn't there a battle ? How did it end ?), and Greek/Roman gods were probably understood to be the personality of a particular city state (or states). The pantheon in Rome is simply meant to indicate an alliance between specific families/states).
No, the link you provided tells you what Nicaea was about. It standardised the method for calculating Easter and condemned Arianism. (Arianism denied the trinity, not Jesus's divinity.)
According to Jewish sources it's rather simple. He was made into one by his followers, primarily Paul (Shaul) in order to advance Christianity. Author's conclusion in the end is pretty much the same.
[+] [-] callmeed|12 years ago|reply
* OT prophecies refer to Jesus as "God with us" and "mighty God" [1][2]
* He said "I am in the Father and the Father is in me ..." [3]
* He said "If you had known me, you would have known my Father also." [3]
* He said "I and the Father are one." and immediately afterwards, jews attempted to stone him, citing "because you, being a man, make yourself God." [4]
[1] http://www.esvbible.org/Isaiah+7/ (verse 14) [2] http://www.esvbible.org/Isaiah+9/ (verse 6) [3] http://www.esvbible.org/John+14/ (verse 11, 7) [4] http://www.esvbible.org/John+10/ (verse 29-33)
Note: no desire to debate these points (too busy atm). Just wanted to point out where some get their stance on the topic.
[+] [-] BetterLateThan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ryanmf|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cup|12 years ago|reply
It's interesting he raises that point because in Islam Jesus is considered a prophet and explicitly not God and in doing so tries to establish the argument that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all the same religion from the same source but that the differences are a result of changes (human error or addition) over time. Hence, while being the most recent of the monotheistic religions, Muslims argue that its a return to the 'original' religion of Abraham, Moses, Jesus etc.
[+] [-] kiliancs|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] azth|12 years ago|reply
On a side note, there exists at least one sect of Christianity that does not believe in Jesus as God.
[+] [-] waps|12 years ago|reply
But if you look at real early texts you will find no mention of God. So how do you arrive from the early books to God ? Well, easy : anything expressed in one of the passive tenses refers to God(s) (except where it really doesn't make sense). Meaning in the really old portions of the bible (we actually have old versions of the bible, in contrast to the quran), you will not find a sentence like "God made it rain", instead you will find "It was raining" and that is currently getting translated using God. There are other factors that make matters even more confusing.
Even in competing religions' texts you will find this. The Greek religions for example also do this. Until the late Roman republic you almost never find any reference to direct action of any of the Greek/Roman Gods. Rather you will find references that look a lot like today's "lady luck was smiling on him". In stories you will find that, for example, a king "felt inspired by Ares", which I'm sure you can translate for yourself. Or "Ares smiled on the king's forces", indicating he won (note that Greek/Roman Gods were not really part of a pantheon. They are more like "patron saints" of specific families or other groups of people. For example, when there's a battle between Sparta and Athens, either Ares "smiles" or Athena does, meaning this indicates which side won (extremely confusing the first time you read that. You read a story of a battle, with lots of descriptions of fights between generals, heroes, etc. Then suddenly "Ares smiled" and it starts describing logistics of returning the army to the Greek mainland. First time you'll be sitting there "wait, wasn't there a battle ? How did it end ?), and Greek/Roman gods were probably understood to be the personality of a particular city state (or states). The pantheon in Rome is simply meant to indicate an alliance between specific families/states).
[+] [-] danieltillett|12 years ago|reply
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
[+] [-] JacobSkyler|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shmerl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jrs99|12 years ago|reply
It's very possible that sometime after Jesus reached puberty, God decided that he was the same thing as Jesus.
[+] [-] o0-0o|12 years ago|reply