Was Jesus Christ a demi-god?

Christians believe that Jesus was God and they were one in the same. From my understanding a demigod is an offspring of a God and a mortal, who has some but not all of the powers of a god. If Jesus was God, why would he need a mortal to conceive himself into the world? But if Jesus was just a demigod that would mean he wasn’t equal to God, and thus Christians would be worshipping another god and violating the First Commandment. So either is he is equal to God, which means his birth from Mary was pointless or he is a demigod, which would mean he really is not God. Which one is correct?

reply to post by jganer


Im just gonna sit back and let all the others explain this to you, Then I will attack the ignorance thereof .

Behh.. Jesus Christ is more complicated than that, I think. Perhaps I am opening myself up to an attack against my.. er.. ignorance, but if I understand correctly: Jesus was most likely based on a real fellow named Yeshua ben Josef. Jesus Christ was Constantine's deification of Julius Caesar. Much like Lincoln was capped and placed on the penny, Jesus was born into the Bible and their collection of fairy tales.

By definition yes.

He was apparently the offspring of a human and a god, a demigod.

demigod [ˈdɛmɪˌgɒd] n 1. (Myth & Legend / Classical Myth & Legend) a. a mythological being who is part mortal, part god

So yes, looks like he was a demigod.

By at least one definition of the word.

reply to post by jganer


So you want us to assume the virgin birth was reality? Because that was a late(er) add in when Jesus was being sold to the pagans. Many of their existing mythologies required a virgin birth and so Joseph was sort of set aside as a foster father. In earlier versions, it was acknowledged that Joseph was Jesus' parent, and it was believed that he became the son of God at his baptism by John the baptist.

Any answer to your question would really depend which version of a much added to tale you want us to consider.

In the earliest versions, Jesus' body was entirely human. He had two human parents. He became filled with God at his Baptism, but that changed nothing about his physical form, which, not surprisingly, died in quite human fashion.

My belief is that Jesus, as well as believers are all Children of god, we were made in his image which makes us gods. Even god said there should be no other Gods before or above him. So they leads me to believe the God, Who I consider the uncreated god is aware that there are other gods that he created. Jesus even told us that we are all Gods. But The uncreated god chose Jesus, his only begotten some that in a since he will have a throne next to his which make him just as important as the uncreated god. Next would us, then Angels and all other host. Even satan in a sence could be consider A god.

But this is all just my understanding. It makes sense to me. Which works for me.

Christ is my personal example....

I prefer the Comte de St Germain.

Originally posted by Illusionsaregrander
reply to post by jganer

 

So you want us to assume the virgin birth was reality? Because that was a late(er) add in when Jesus was being sold to the pagans. Many of their existing mythologies required a virgin birth and so Joseph was sort of set aside as a foster father. In earlier versions, it was acknowledged that Joseph was Jesus' parent, and it was believed that he became the son of God at his baptism by John the baptist.

Any answer to your question would really depend which version of a much added to tale you want us to consider.

In the earliest versions, Jesus' body was entirely human. He had two human parents. He became filled with God at his Baptism, but that changed nothing about his physical form, which, not surprisingly, died in quite human fashion.

I know the bible was written by man you don't have to convince me. I wanted to know what the modern Christians had to say about this, for I was once a Christian. I want to see some proof where Jesus said he was a God because I havn't found it. Their has been a recorded 33,820 denominations within Christanity, so many of them will disagree and bicker on which is correct. But still I would appreciate their input.

I think he was a Demi-god. I was watching this whole bit on the history channel about the greek mythology, the gods and all that. If there really is life on other planets ( Aliens ) Virgin births a.k.a Artificial Insemination is very possible. The bible claims it was a virgin birth so it has to be true right? How else would a woman get prego without doing it.

Originally posted by jganer
I want to see some proof where Jesus said he was a God because I havn't found it.

I heard an interesting observation the other day. In a literary analysis (as opposed to a theological one) of the New Testament, it was noted that the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark & Luke) do a very good job of showing you who Jesus is, while intentionally not telling you who Jesus is (the Gospel of John is much more explicit on the nature of Christ.)

During his trial, Jesus turns the question of "are you the Christ" around on his accuser by asking "who do you say I am?", thus allowing the judger to be set up for judgement. This, the lecturer noted, is the point of the literary tactic of the Synoptic Gospels -- you, as the reader, are being asked that question -- "Who do you think Christ is?" The end result being, either you believe that Christ is God, or you do not, and, as Christ's accusers were, your decision is your own, not one forced upon you.

That is the point of the Bible -- I can cite numerous passages that indicate the nature of Christ, but if you don't believe, it makes no difference, because the answer to the question "Who do you think Christ is?" is yours, and yours alone.

Originally posted by Dudeimanoldfart
I think he was a Demi-god. I was watching this whole bit on the history channel about the greek mythology, the gods and all that. If there really is life on other planets ( Aliens ) Virgin births a.k.a Artificial Insemination is very possible. The bible claims it was a virgin birth so it has to be true right? How else would a woman get prego without doing it.

The same could be said for other gods that have the same characteristics of Jesus. Horus (Egypt) and other gods who share the characteristics of being born of a virgin all by definition are demi-gods.

Originally posted by adjensen

Originally posted by jganer
I want to see some proof where Jesus said he was a God because I havn't found it.

I heard an interesting observation the other day. In a literary analysis (as opposed to a theological one) of the New Testament, it was noted that the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark & Luke) do a very good job of showing you who Jesus is, while intentionally not telling you who Jesus is (the Gospel of John is much more explicit on the nature of Christ.)

During his trial, Jesus turns the question of "are you the Christ" around on his accuser by asking "who do you say I am?", thus allowing the judger to be set up for judgement. This, the lecturer noted, is the point of the literary tactic of the Synoptic Gospels -- you, as the reader, are being asked that question -- "Who do you think Christ is?" The end result being, either you believe that Christ is God, or you do not, and, as Christ's accusers were, your decision is your own, not one forced upon you.

That is the point of the Bible -- I can cite numerous passages that indicate the nature of Christ, but if you don't believe, it makes no difference, because the answer to the question "Who do you think Christ is?" is yours, and yours alone.

I don't think Jesus was refering to himself when he said "who do you say I am.", I think he was asking who do you think God is. When people see the words "I am" they assume the speaker is reffering to themself when infact anyone can say the words "I am" that does not mean that he is claiming to be "the one" or divine. I don't feel like typing what "I am" really means (lazy) so I will just post a link. I AM

reply to post by jganer
I think Jesus is God by observation. Not by birth or by appointment or declaration, but by looking at him and thinking about what you are witnessing. Is it God, or something else. If something else, then someone insane, or maybe possessed by a demon?
Jesus asks, what do you see? Do you see God, then if so, do as God does and be righteous and become sons of God. To himself, he was that son of God but before him, there was no definition for what such a person would be like. Now we know. When we see Jesus we see God, and it's not because of some imposing great and mighty scary god person. He is meek and lowly and his greatness is measured in terms of humility and thoughtfulness.

Originally posted by jganer
But if Jesus was just a demigod that would mean he wasn’t equal to God, and thus Christians would be worshipping another god and violating the First Commandment. So either is he is equal to God, which means his birth from Mary was pointless or he is a demigod, which would mean he really is not God.]

As any bible-reading christian would tell you, Jesus is less than the Father, so they are not equal. Even among trinity believers, this results in it being a hierarchical triangle with the Father on the top, instead of them all being on the same level.

reply to post by jganer
jganer,
Jesus Christ was exactly who He said He was and still is. Here is the Truth of the matter and His Word is sure but the words of man are follly.

Joh 16:28 I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.
Joh 1:1 ¶ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Joh 1:2 The same was in the beginning with God.
Joh 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Folly leads to vexation and misunderstanding and is foolishness when there is a solid path.

Pr 14:8 The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit.
Pr 15:21 Folly is joy to him that is destitute of wisdom: but a man of understanding walketh uprightly.
Ec 1:17 And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.

The Father and Jesus are equals in power at present.

Col 1:19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;

There comes a time when He, Jesus returns the Deity vested in Him back to the Father, please read -

1Co 15:24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
1Co 15:25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
1Co 15:26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
1Co 15:27 For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.
1Co 15:28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

( Notice verse 25 above "He must Reign", that means He is King! )
Call Him what you will but I would warn all, be careful of blastphemy.

Ro 3:4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

Joh 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

He is truly all things to those who truly know Him and they abide in tranquility of Spirit.

Truthiron.

Originally posted by jganer

Originally posted by adjensen
That is the point of the Bible -- I can cite numerous passages that indicate the nature of Christ, but if you don't believe, it makes no difference, because the answer to the question "Who do you think Christ is?" is yours, and yours alone.

I don't think Jesus was refering to himself when he said "who do you say I am.", I think he was asking who do you think God is. When people see the words "I am" they assume the speaker is reffering to themself when infact anyone can say the words "I am" that does not mean that he is claiming to be "the one" or divine.

No, the same words are not used in those two instances, and if you read Jesus' conversations with Peter, the High Priests and Pilate, Jesus directs the other to declare who he is, rather than him testifying to it. As Pilate says, "What I have written, I have written." He meant it as an insult, but he, in fact, was making a testimony.

Originally posted by babloyi

Originally posted by jganer
But if Jesus was just a demigod that would mean he wasn’t equal to God, and thus Christians would be worshipping another god and violating the First Commandment. So either is he is equal to God, which means his birth from Mary was pointless or he is a demigod, which would mean he really is not God.]

As any bible-reading christian would tell you, Jesus is less than the Father, so they are not equal. Even among trinity believers, this results in it being a hierarchical triangle with the Father on the top, instead of them all being on the same level.

Well, that depends on the group you're talking to -- for example, the schism between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches stemmed from the RC inclusion of "and the son" into the Nicene Creed, regarding the nature of the Holy Spirit. Though it was also a political break (the Eastern Orthodox didn't think that the Creed could be changed without another ecumenical conference,) the heart of the matter was that it did create a stepped hierarchy, a western notion stemming from Augustine, and something that the Eastern branch didn't subscribe to.

While it is clear that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinct, and the Father begat the Son, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father (and the Son, if you're not Eastern Orthodox :-), in no way does this lessen the Son or the Spirit, they are all three God equally.

reply to post by adjensen

While it is clear that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinct, and the Father begat the Son, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father (and the Son, if you're not Eastern Orthodox :-), in no way does this lessen the Son or the Spirit, they are all three God equally.

While it is commendable, your clarification of babloyi's earlier comment, I think you are falling into the same sort of thing of assuming that there is an agreement on any part of the Trinity doctrine that is universal among all Christians.
From my study on the Council of Nicea and the whole Arian controversy, what came out of it as being the so-called orthodox view, Jesus is in fact not begotten. That is what caused the whole ruckus to start with. How did Jesus come into being? Arius decided that Jesus was begotten but it was back before there was ever a universe and matter and time, but when there only existed the spirit which was a unity. So to him, however it came about, it did and that is a fact, but how it happened does not matter since it is not relevant to any created being such as ourselves. The hierarchy with the Imperial political connections thought otherwise and decided to persecute Arius for having an opinion as not having been given that authority to make a decision, by having been given some sort of throne to sit on. The only way they could effectively squash Arius was to declare that Jesus was not begotten.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by adjensen

 

While it is clear that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinct, and the Father begat the Son, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father (and the Son, if you're not Eastern Orthodox :-), in no way does this lessen the Son or the Spirit, they are all three God equally.

While it is commendable, your clarification of babloyi's earlier comment, I think you are falling into the same sort of thing of assuming that there is an agreement on any part of the Trinity doctrine that is universal among all Christians.
From my study on the Council of Nicea and the whole Arian controversy, what came out of it as being the so-called orthodox view, Jesus is in fact not begotten. That is what caused the whole ruckus to start with. How did Jesus come into being? Arius decided that Jesus was begotten but it was back before there was ever a universe and matter and time, but when there only existed the spirit which was a unity. So to him, however it came about, it did and that is a fact, but how it happened does not matter since it is not relevant to any created being such as ourselves. The hierarchy with the Imperial political connections thought otherwise and decided to persecute Arius for having an opinion as not having been given that authority to make a decision, by having been given some sort of throne to sit on. The only way they could effectively squash Arius was to declare that Jesus was not begotten.

Historically, that's not the case, nor does it remain so to this day, so I'm not sure how you arrived at that conclusion. The Church teaches that Christ was, in fact, begotten (not made), from the Father, but that there was never a time when the Father existed, but the Son did not. This was the beef with Arius, because he said that there WAS a time when the Father only existed, that the Son owed his existence to the Father, and was, thus, subservient to the Father and not a divine equal (which results in Father and Son not both being God, the loss of monotheism, and so on.)

The early church needed to deal with this, because it was clear from the earliest of records that people, both leaders and followers, were actually worshiping Christ as God, so Arius' teachings would repudiate Judaism, which was obviously something that neither Christ, nor the early church did. Hence the importance of the issue at the first ecumenical council, Nicaea.

How it all works (Son begotten by Father, but never a time when Son didn't exist,) I have no clue. But that is the teaching of the church, and it's a theological point that I'm not interested enough in to have pursued much further than my 10,000 foot view.

reply to post by adjensen

Originally posted by adjensen
While it is clear that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinct, and the Father begat the Son, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father (and the Son, if you're not Eastern Orthodox :-), in no way does this lessen the Son or the Spirit, they are all three God equally.

Admittedly, unlike you, I have not made this sort of stuff an area of my life's study (it's more of a hobby for me ), so all my information can only come from the Bible. The Bible says that Jesus (himself said that he) was less than the Father, he might not have the same desires and wants as the Father, and that the Father knew stuff that Jesus didn't know.

In this sense, if one wishes to insert the idea that the three are all "equally God" (an idea that isn't explicitly stated in the Bible, unlike the previous 3 things I mentioned), I suppose they could do that, but such an assertion wouldn't really have any practical meaning.

While I respect your field of study (and the courage you must have had to have chosen it ), I find that "the experts" (not you, but the classicalists who wrote all those books and had all those thoughts, St. Augustine, as an example you mentioned) many times insert their own biases and opinions and mesh them to form what then becomes popular thought, and many times, a frank and unhindered reading of the original source (true for the Bible as well as the Talmud or Quran, even), reveals startlingly different ideas.

And an aside about this begotten business, Jesus WAS called the "begotten son of God", which I believe, even if not taken in the literal sense of begotten, signifies (in the original Greek as well as in most translations), that he WAS "made" or "brought into being". So there would necessarily exist a time that God existed and Jesus did not, or if Jesus was brought into being before time was created, then an "instance" or "occasion" where God existed without Jesus. Once again, all I know is from what I have read of the Bible, I do not study this stuff with a mind towards my life's profession.

reply to post by babloyi


One of my favourite doctrines is the Doctrine of Divine Incomprehensibility, because it allows me to tuck some things aside with the notion "well, I don't really understand that, and I probably can't understand it" :-)

Within the Trinity, the Father is not the Son, who is not the Spirit, who is not the Father. But all three are God, and there is only one God. So the Father can know things that the Son does not, the Son may have thoughts or ambitions that are not shared with the Father, and the Spirit can be "in the world" while the Son is not.

A somewhat silly (and irrelevant, please don't think that I see it this way) means of looking at it is this. Some days, I am happy. Some days, I am sad. Some days, I am in a state of malaise. All three different -- the happy me is not the sad me, but on all days, I am me. While you might prefer to hang around me on the happy days, I'm equal in all three moods, but the happy me acts different than the sad me, for example.

Recognize that the Doctrine of the Trinity (any theological doctrine, for that matter,) doesn't dictate reality, it is merely an attempt to explain what appears to be reality. It may be completely wrong, but it is the best explanation that anyone has (to date) come up with to explain the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection, what it means, and why the earliest Christians acted the way they did and said the things that they did.