I don't see how a person can be a Christian if they deny the deity of Christ. It's the definition: CHRIST - CHRISTian.
Denial of the deity of Jesus
- Thread starter Bright Raven
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I don't see how a person can be a Christian if they deny the deity of Christ. It's the definition: CHRIST - CHRISTian.
Cruciform
New member
No, since they follow not the true Incarnate Christ, but merely a false idol of their own making.
There are believers like myself who endeavor to discover the difference between the authentic speech of Jesus from the obvious theological statements and titles that were placed in his mouth after the crucifixion.
Jesus of Nazareth had a unique way of speaking. He is said to have spoken with "authority and not as the Scribes." He was a teacher using puzzling stories called "parables" and often spoke with pithy one-liners that have been identified as his real speech.
The long, dense and philosophical mystic statements in the Gospel of John has long been recognized as early church theology that developed after Jesus lived.
Like it or not, we simply do not possess the original documents. What we have are copies of copies of copies. The earliest copy of the New Testament gospels is a tiny fragment of John which has been dated to the Second Century.
And the word Christ means an anointed military king who would conquer the conquers on behalf of the Jewish people. It was shorthand for seeing Jesus as that messiah, even though tradition clearly indicated a messiah was never to be killed. When this happened to Jesus the church began to take on the mantle of resurrection and start applying it to a single man rather than a general resurrection as Paul and the Jews believed.
genuineoriginal
New member
If you knew what deity is, you wouldn't have asked the question you asked.
So please tell us what you mistakenly believe deity is.
glorydaz
Well-known member
When He said, "Only God is good", He was giving them the opportunity to recognize Him as God since they called Him "good".
And, if you were a Jew you wouldn't be claiming He was "side-stepping" anything. You'd understand why they sought to stone Him. He claimed to be the great I AM. This is not the only time He did so.
John 8:57-59
Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
glorydaz
Well-known member
How bout you tell us what YOU mistakenly believe deity is instead of trying to bait someone else with your silly question?
How different are the dead sea scrolls from what we have now?
It does mean that Jesus was not Lord and Christ until His Father made Him so.
Act 2:36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.
The RCC version, which most believe to their detriment, is that a living God came down from Heaven to become a little baby in Marys womb, that is someone who had fellowship with his Father before He was born.
Ridiculous.
LA
keypurr
Well-known member
Got to be Scotch then.
Along with a consensus of research, I do not accept the Gospel of John as coming from the actual figure of Jesus.
I have to depend on Mark, Matthew and Luke to get anywhere near an accurate assessment and understanding of Jesus's message and mission.
John's gospel is not about mission. It is about theology. It was written around the year 100, give or take a few.
In John there are no parables, no concern for the destitute, no short sayings, no Last Supper and a totally different day claimed for Jesus's death.
John's Jesus speaks in long, dense monologues, mostly all about himself and the importance of believing in him. He says things like "I am the light of the world" which would have sounded preposterous and bizarre to any first century audience.
Personally, I do not believe Jesus "side-stepped" ANYTHING. He was always honest, open and transparent. He did not admit to being a divinity because he wasn't.
John is a revealing of the Father, the love of God.
More than anything else, the scrolls have revealed a picture of first-century Judaism more diverse than was ever thought before. Plus there are many non-biblical (non-canonical) manuscripts among the scrolls.
Even historians and experts on ancient calligraphy have had a hard time translating and understanding the scrolls. If I remember right, teams have been working with and organizing the writings and fragments since about World War II.
I remember learning that oftentimes the fragments are the same composition (such as the book of Leviticus or Isaiah) but in fact originate from different copies.
I believe all the books in our current Bible except for Esther can be found in the scrolls. But the scrolls are different from the Bible in many ways--some substantial and others not. This is nothing new. The oldest Dead Sea Scrolls, the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint are all literally different in many respects.
And, of course, the scrolls have nothing to do with Jesus since he was not born yet.
I am not claiming that John didn't. Each gospel written was a particular revelation of the Father and his love seen through Jesus.
Jesus gave plenty of folks, then and now, to recognize him as anything.
Some saw him as a threat
Some saw him as another boring wandering teacher
Some could have cared less
And some saw God in him.
The verse I offered simply gives Jesus's answer to people who were calling him "good."
The 4 gospels speak of the 4 faces of Jesus.
King, Servant, Man, Spirit.
Rev 4:7 And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.
LA
Your theological division of the gospels is merely that: theology. And it is your personal theology.
It is an interpretation or an opinion based on your (and others') understanding of the New Testament.
By the way, I think the earliest theological opinion concerning the four gospels came from Irenaeus, the leader of a church in France in about the year 150. He said the gospels were true because there are four different directions: North, South, etc.
We really have no idea who wrote the gospels we call Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, any more than we know who wrote the Gospel of Thomas.
They're all attributed to disciples of Jesus, but we don't really know who wrote them. People do not realize that affixing a "famous name" to a text was just how things were done then. This fact explains why some of the letters of Paul are actually forgeries, done in his name by later interpreters.
It's hard to interpret Paul, and much of the reason is because his theology was interpreted and added to by other authors.
The correct answer is nearly identical.
Except that the Lord Jesus Christ did not teach from the "New Testament" when he referred to the scriptures. He taught from what is repeated in the scrolls.
