Jesus, A Prophet or a Son of God ?

Please, this is not intended to hurt anyone's feelings towards their Religion or their Prophet. It is a subject that I have long been bamboozled with and have asked many people, but it always ends up with so many more questions than answers. I have done some research and have come up with this website that gives me a better understanding, as to why things got corrupted along the way, but I would like to get feedback and comments about this subject, with an open minded viewpoint.

www.harunyahya.com...

Hi,

I was wondering why you believe that being a prophet and the Son of God were mutually exclusive.

In addition, what are you using as your 'source' material? The New Testament? The Quran? The Book of Mormon? If the New Testament, which version?

There are many passages in the New Testament that learned people often interpret as stating that Christ is the Son of God. Would it help if I pointed some out or are you familiar with them?

Have a nice day.

Eric

I agree with Eric.

We need to know where the information is?
Is the source credible?
What brought the discrepancies?

The question is too broad.

I believe Jesus was a man, human, a prophet.
I believe his words and his message have been twisted and changed over time.
Hes gone from human to the son of god? I believe that if god is so powerful, so great, why would he have the need for a son, it makes no sense.

Hello again!

I took some time to briefly look at the website that you provided the url for. Unfortunately, unless you are already a Moslem, it's pretty useless. It seems to be an excellent primer for those who believe as you do, but every refutation offered to the point of Christ being the Son of God was from the Quran.

By definition Christians and Jews will believe that the Quran is inherently flawed. The text is also lacking in it's citing source material when making claims about the history of Christianity. That always raises a flag for me.

I should state, however, that I didn't get too far into the text. Did I miss something relevant?

Eric

i believe he was a renagade rabi, hence other rabis wanted him dead, romans couldnt give a toss.

i think jesus is the anthropomorphisation of the sun. not a real person.

there were many historians and writers around at the time of jesus' supposed life and how many of them documented some crazy bearded chap running around performing miracles with his 12 buddies(personifications of the zodiac)...i'll tell you...4...1 of which is a known forgery the other 3 refer to "christus" or "the christ" which is the annointed one...not refering to jesus...sorry chaps...

www.zeitgeistmovie.com...

It was common for the Romans to proclaim their emperors and kings to be gods. They understood the distinction between emperor gods and the superpowerful entities living on Mt. Olympus. But, naturally, some simple folk never quite understood the difference, so here we are a couple of millennia later having the discussion.

If you can come up with even a halfway coherent definition of "God," then maybe your question might halfway make sense. As it is, if you don't know what you're talking about, then I don't know what you're talking about.

Originally posted by morganathefey
i believe he was a renagade rabi, hence other rabis wanted him dead, romans couldnt give a toss.

If you go by what the Bible says, that's pretty much the case. Jesus was a sorcerer and a necromancer, and the crap hit the fan not long after he raised Lazarus from the dead, stinking and half rotted. Even in the Bible, the people who saw this little trick knew something was seriously wrong and accused Jesus of working with Beelzebub, one of Satan's chief demons. Rather than deny it, Jesus pretty much admitted it, saying that by getting Beelzebub to work with him, he was trying to "divide and conquer" Satan's evil forces.

It caused a huge problem, and when Jesus went into the Temple in Jerusalem not to long after and actually got in a fistfight with some people there (money lenders, supposedly), that was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back. Depending on who you believe, they either got him flogged and crucified for a short time to teach him a lesson and run him and his gang out of town, or he was actually killed. They didn't get Paul, though, which came back to bite them later.

If you believe the story, that is. There's no particularly good evidence to show that it's in any way true. So you can make of it what you want.

Originally posted by SuicideVirus
Jesus was a sorcerer and a necromancer, and the crap hit the fan not long after he raised Lazarus from the dead, stinking and half rotted. Even in the Bible, the people who saw this little trick knew something was seriously wrong and accused Jesus of working with Beelzebub, one of Satan's chief demons. Rather than deny it, Jesus pretty much admitted it, saying that by getting Beelzebub to work with him, he was trying to "divide and conquer" Satan's evil forces.

Can you provide anything to support this theory? I just reread John 11 and find nothing like what you are claiming.

Eric

Originally posted by SuicideVirus
They understood the distinction between emperor gods and the superpowerful entities living on Mt. Olympus.

Uh...

Thats the Greeks, sorry to nitpick. Referring specifically to Mt. Olympus.

or fictional character or composite or historical guy that said some stuff that wasn't that original... i hate it when people limit things about jesus to one thing or another... or one of three things (cs lewis, i'm looking at you)

Jesus was the son of God sent to earth to save man from original sin.
I am familiar with Jesus having trouble at the moneychangers at the temple but am curious as to where you got your information that he was involved in a fistfight.

Originally posted by duster
Jesus was the son of God sent to earth to save man from original sin.

and yet you can't really back that statement up with any evidence. all you really have are a loose assembly of myths that you call a holy book and use for your religion

This topic comes up repeatedly every few weeks, so I thought, why not try to properly place the position of Jesus Christ with regards to Christianity? Or at least draw the lines to show where opinions differ.

The question of Jesus stems from several religious scriptures, so if you don't accept those scriptures as being valid in any way, we come up with the first assumption:

1) That Jesus was nobody at all, a fictional character, created out of nothing, or something so removed, that it fails to have any relevance.

2) Next off is the opinion that Jesus was a real person, who may or may not have done some things, who was then immortalised in a book, which added many things to his life.
If we take this position, then while we may not disagree with his existence, anything in any scripture is irrelevant. It may be that this part of what the scripture says is true, but this part is not. In this case, the whole question becomes irrelevant, unless someone is willing to make a detailed study of the scriptures to find out what is original and what is added (far outside the scope of this post).

3) Lastly comes the position that everything in the Bible (with regards to Jesus's position) is true.
While some may say that much of the bible is metaphoric, I'm sure they'd agree that something as important as Jesus's position with regard to humanity is pretty important, and would be meant to be taken as is.

I'm taking the assumption that at least SOME PART of the scripture is correct. If this is not true, then the very existence of Jesus is moot point, and it is pointless to have this discussion.

One main part is John 3:16. Jesus is referred to as God's only begotten Son. Begetting (by definition) brings forth the idea of intercourse, which I think is pretty odd when relating to God. Now, I'm hardly a scholar, so if there is someone more learned than me, I'd appreciate help from them in this part. Another 'begotten' from the NT is in Heb 11:17, referring to Abraham and Isaac. Is this the same word used? Also, in Pslams(OT, but anyhow), David is also said to have been 'begotten' by God. Is this the same word?
This information will help clear up a very important point.

Another important point, disregarding the first, is whether or not Jesus is God. He is alternately called Son of man and Son of God in the Bible. Some say that he called himself 'Son of Man' to hide his divinity until the end. I do not understand such deceit. Some say he was both man and God at the same time. This is more confusing. Was Jesus both man and God, exclusive of each other, or man and God simultaneously, or a man who sometimes became God? The first cannot be possible because says "The Father is Greater than I" and "I can do nothing but by the will of my Father". The second is even more confusing, because then we have verses like this one, which call him a man who God worked through. The third idea is absurd, even if you concentrate on before the crucifixion (when some people say that Jesus and God became seperated).

This brings us to Jesus's position in the Trinity. Of course, for unitarians, there would be no such thing, and no problem here. However, if we take the Trinitarian approach, where in the Trinity does Jesus stand?
As mentioned earlier, we have "The Father is greater than I". This shows that in any trinitarian concept, the 'Father' would be on the top. Sort of like a triangle with the peak facing upwards. Then we have Jesus praying to God for the Comforter, which I'm assuming is the Holy Spirit, so I'd think that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not one and the same. So again, it would either be a triangle with the Father on the top, and Jesus and the Holy Spirite at the bottom, or a line from top to bottom going Jesus->Holy Spirit->Father.

This is as far as I've gone, I'd appreciate some input to fully and properly put this question to rest. If you disagree with the existence of Jesus, then you disagree, and I understand, but otherwise, I'd like it if there was some scriptural backing for anything you say, because anything definitive about Jesus would have to come from the scripture.

[edit on 8-8-2007 by babloyi]

Originally posted by Fifth_Column
I have done some research ...

Perhaps give this a listen.

Google Video Link