Is Jesus God?

[Stuart Mason]

And how can we
interpret Jesus's words: "I'm not good ,because God is good alone" Doesn't that mean that Jesus
was saying about himself like not about God?

Jesus doesn't actually say he isn't good. He asks why they call him good when no one but God is good. That can be interpretted as Jesus asking them if, by calling him good, they understand that he's God.

[johnson1010]

Mental gymnastics.

Stick the landing!


This is a prime example of somebody trying to imply that if what's in the bible doesn't meet with the rhetoric they promote, then it is because we, as the lowly human readers aren't understanding it hard enough.

[v_serkov]

Jesus was never either a god or real person.He is a myth!

[Kevin]

Jesus doesn't actually say he isn't good. He asks why they call him good when no one but God is good. That can be interpretted as Jesus asking them if, by calling him good, they understand that he's God.

Today the #1 reason why so many have a hard time with simple tasks of reading comprehension, when it comes to this subject anyway, is that they have built up constructs of the believer, or the nonbeliever, whichever one it is they are not, as being a cartoonishy idiotic character who is unlikely to have a valid point. In contrast, Jesus, as evidenced here, operates under an umbrella of optimism that serves to coax people into questioning beliefs and explaining actions. Predictably, it turned out to drive many of his day insane. Fanatics!

[Stuart Mason]

Today the #1 reason why so many have a hard time with simple tasks of reading comprehension, when it comes to this subject anyway, is that they have built up constructs of the believer, or the nonbeliever, whichever one it is they are not, as being a cartoonishy idiotic character who is unlikely to have a valid point. In contrast, Jesus, as evidenced here, operates under an umbrella of optimism that serves to coax people into questioning beliefs and explaining actions. Predictably, it turned out to drive many of his day insane. Fanatics!

That's one way of looking at it. I'd say it's a matter of context, really. Mark 10:18, as it's worded in the KJV, can be interpetted different ways. Taken by itself it would likely be read as Jesus saying he isn't God. But if read in the context of verses where Jesus is identified with God, then many can and do read it as Jesus probing the would-be follower's understanding of his divine nature. The wording lends itself to either interpretation, especially given Jesus' habit of speaking in deliberately cryptic language.

[v_serkov]

"We pass on now to the presentation of evidence which we venture to think demonstrates with an almost mathematic precision,

that the Jesus of the four gospels is a legendary hero, as unhistorical as William Tell of Switzerland. This evidence is
furnished by the epistles bearing the signature of Paul. He has been accepted as not only the greatest apostle of
Christianity, but in a sense also the author of its theology. It is generally admitted that the epistles bearing
the name of Paul are among the oldest apostolical writings. They are older than the gospels. This is very important
information. When Paul was preaching, the four gospels had not yet been written. From the epistles of Paul,
of which there are about thirteen in the Bible—making the New Testament largely the work of this one apostle—we
learn that there were in different parts of Asia, a number of Christian churches already established. Not only Paul,
then, but also the Christian church was in existence before the gospels were composed. It would be natural to infer
that it was not the gospels which created the church, but the church which produced the gospels. Do not lose sight
of the fact that when Paul was preaching to the Christians there was no written biography of Jesus in existence.
There was a church without a book.

In comparing the Jesus of Paul with the Jesus whose portrait is drawn for us in the gospels, we find that they are
not the same persons at all. This is decisive. Paul knows nothing about a miraculously born savior. He does not
mention a single time, in all his thirteen epistles, that Jesus was born of a virgin, or that his birth was
accompanied with heavenly signs and wonders. He knew nothing of a Jesus born after the manner of the gospel
writers. It is not imaginable that he knew the facts, but suppressed them, or that he considered them unimportant,
or that he forgot to refer to them in any of his public utterances. Today, a preacher is expelled from his
denomination if he suppresses or ignores the miraculous conception of the Son of God; but Paul was guilty of
that very heresy. How explain it? It is quite simple: The virgin-born Jesus was not yet invented when Paul
was preaching Christianity. Neither he, nor the churches he had organized, had ever heard of such a person.
The virgin-born Jesus was of later origin than the Apostle Paul.

Let the meaning of this discrepancy between the Jesus of Paul, that is to say, the earliest portrait of Jesus,
and the Jesus of the four evangelists, be fully grasped by the student, and it should prove beyond a doubt
that in Paul's time the story of Jesus' birth from the virgin-mother and the Holy Ghost, which has since
become a cardinal dogma of the Christian church, was not yet in circulation. Jesus had not yet been
Hellenized; he was still a Jewish Messiah whose coming was foretold in the Old Testament, and who was
to be a prophet like unto Moses, without the remotest suggestion of a supernatural origin.

No proposition in Euclid is safer from contradiction than that, if Paul knew what the gospels tell about
Jesus, he would have, at least once or twice during his long ministry, given evidence of his knowledge
of it. The conclusion is inevitable that the gospel Jesus is later than Paul and his churches.
Paul stood nearest to the time of Jesus. Of those whose writings are supposed to have come down to
he is the most representative, and his epistles are the first literature of the new religion.
And yet there is absolutely not a single hint or suggestion in them of such a Jesus as is depicted
in the gospels. The gospel Jesus was not yet put together or compiled, when Paul was preaching.

Once more; if we peruse carefully and critically the writings of Paul, the earliest and greatest
Christian apostle and missionary, we find that he is not only ignorant of the gospel
stories about the birth and miracles of Jesus, but he is equally and just as innocently
ignorant of the teachings of Jesus. In the gospels Jesus is the author of the Sermon on the Mount,
the Lord's Prayer, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Story of Dives, the Good Samaritan,
etc. Is it conceivable that a preacher of Jesus could go throughout the world to convert people to
the teachings of Jesus, as Paul did, without ever quoting a single one of his sayings? Had Paul
known that Jesus had preached a sermon, or formulated a prayer, or said many inspired things about
the here and the hereafter, he could not have helped quoting, now and then, from the words of his master.
If Christianity could have been established without a knowledge of the teachings of Jesus, why, then,
did Jesus come to teach, and why were his teachings preserved by divine inspiration? But if a knowledge
of these teachings of Jesus is indispensable to making converts, Paul gives not the least evidence that
he possessed such knowledge.

What would we say of a disciple of Tolstoi, for example, who came to America to make converts to Count Tolstoi and

never once quoted anything that Tolstoi had said? Or what would we think of the Christian missionaries who go to
India, China, Japan and Africa to preach the gospel, if they never mentioned to the people of these countries the
Sermon on the Mount, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Lord's Prayer—nor quoted a single text from the gospels?
Yet Paul, the first missionary, did the very thing which would be inexplicable in a modern missionary.
There is only one rational explanation for this: The Jesus of Paul was not born of a virgin; he did not work
miracles; and he was not a teacher. It was after his day that such a Jesus was—I have to use again a strong
word—invented.

It has been hinted by certain professional defenders of Christianity that Paul's specific mission was to introduce
Christianity among the Gentiles, and not to call attention to the miraculous element in the life of his Master.
But this is a very lame defense. What is Christianity, but the life and teachings of Jesus? And how can
it be introduced among the Gentiles without a knowledge of the doctrines and works of its founder? Paul
gives no evidence of possessing any knowledge of the teachings of Jesus, how could he, then, be a missionary
of Christianity to the heathen? There is no other answer which can be given than that the Christianity of Paul
was something radically different from the Christianity of the later gospel writers, who in all probability were
Greeks and not Jews. Moreover, it is known that Paul was reprimanded by his fellow-apostles for carrying
Christianity to the Gentiles. What better defense could Paul have given for his conduct than to have quoted
the commandment of Jesus—

"Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." And he would have quoted the "divine"
text had he been familiar with it. Nay, the other apostles would not have taken him to task for obeying the
commandment of Jesus had they been familiar with such a commandment. It all goes to support the proposition
that the gospel Jesus was of a date later than the apostolic times.

That the authorities of the church realize how damaging to the reality of the gospel Jesus is the inexplicable
silence of Paul concerning him, may be seen in their vain effort to find in a passage put in Paul's mouth by
the unknown author of the book of Acts, evidence that Paul does quote the sayings of Jesus. The passage referred
to is the following: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Paul is made to state that this was a saying
of Jesus. In the first place, this quotation is not in the epistles of Paul, but in the Acts, of which Paul was
not the author; in the second place, there is no such quotation in the gospels. The position, then, that there
is not a single saying of Jesus in the gospels which is quoted by Paul in his many epistles is unassailable,
and certainly fatal to the historicity of the gospel Jesus.

Again, from Paul himself we learn that he was a zealous Hebrew, a Pharisee of Pharisees, studying with Gamaliel
in Jerusalem, presumably to become a rabbi. Is it possible that such a man could remain totally ignorant of a
miracle worker and teacher like Jesus, living in the same city with him? If Jesus really raised Lazarus from
the grave, and entered Jerusalem at the head of a procession, waving branches and shouting,
"hosanna"—if he was really crucified in Jerusalem, and ascended from one of its environs—is it possible
that Paul neither saw Jesus nor heard anything about these miracles? But if he knew all these things about
Jesus, is it possible that he could go through the world preaching Christ without ever once referring to
them? It is more likely that when Paul was studying in Jerusalem there was no miraculous Jesus living or
teaching in any part of Judea.

If men make their gods they also make their Christs. [Footnote: Christianity and Mythology. J. M. Robertson,
to whom the author acknowledges his indebtedness, for the difference between Paul's Jesus and that of the Gospels.]
It is frequently urged that it was impossible for a band of illiterate fishermen to have created out of their
own fancy so glorious a character as that of Jesus, and that it would be more miraculous to suppose that the
unique sayings of Jesus and his incomparably perfect life were invented by a few plain people than to believe
in his actual existence. But it is not honest to throw the question into that form. We do not know who were
the authors of the gospels. It is pure assumption that they were written by plain fishermen. The authors of
the gospels do not disclose their identity. The words, according to Matthew, Mark, etc., represent only the
guesses or opinions of translators and copyists.

Both in the gospels and in Christian history the apostles are represented as illiterate men. But if they spoke Greek,
and could also write in Greek, they could not have been just plain fishermen. That they were Greeks, not Jews,
and more or less educated, may be safely inferred from the fact that they all write in Greek, and one of them at
least seems to be acquainted with the Alexandrian school of philosophy. Jesus was supposedly a Jew, his
twelve apostles all Jews—how is it, then, that the only biographies of him extant are all in Greek? If
his fishermen disciples were capable of composition in Greek, they could not have been illiterate men,
if they could not have written in Greek—which was a rare accomplishment for a Jew, according to what Josephus
says—then the gospels were not written by the apostles of Jesus. But the fact that though these documents are
in a language alien both to Jesus and his disciples, they are unsigned and undated, goes to prove, we think,
that their editors or authors wished to conceal their identity that they may be taken for the apostles themselves.

In the next place it is equally an assumption that the portrait of Jesus is incomparable. It is now proven
beyond a doubt that there is not a single saying of Jesus, I say this deliberately, which had not already
been known both among the Jews and Pagans. [Footnote: Sometimes it is urged by pettifogging clergymen that,
while it is true that Confucius gave the Golden Rule six hundred years before Jesus, it was in a negative form.
Confucius said, "Do not unto another what you would not another to do unto you." Jesus said, "Do unto others,"
etc. But every negative has its corresponding affirmation. Moreover, are not the Ten Commandments in the negative?
But the Greek sages gave the Golden Rule in as positive a form as we find it in the Gospels. "And may I do
to others as I would that others should do to me," said Plato.—Jowett Trans., V.—483. P.


Besides, if the only difference between Jesus and Confucius, the one a God, the other a mere man, was that
they both said the same thing, the one in the negative, the other in the positive, it is not enough to prove
Jesus infinitely superior to Confucius. Many of Jesus' own commandments are in the negative: "Resist not evil,
" for instance.] And as to his life; it is in no sense superior or even as large and as many sided as that of
Socrates. I know some consider it blasphemy to compare Jesus with Socrates, but that must be attributed to
prejudice rather than to reason.

And to the question that if Jesus be mythical, we cannot account for the rise and progress of the Christian
church, we answer that the Pagan gods who occupied Mount Olympus were all mythical beings—mere shadows, and
yet Paganism was the religion of the most advanced and cultured nations of antiquity. How could an imaginary
Zeus, or Jupiter, draw to his temple the elite of Greece and Rome? And if there is nothing strange in the
rise and spread of the Pagan church; in the rapid progress of the worship of Osiris, who never existed; in
the wonderful success of the religion of Mithra, who is but a name; if the worship of Adonis, of Attis, of Isis,
and the legends of Heracles, Prometheus, Hercules, and the Hindoo trinity,—Brahma, Shiva, Chrishna,—with their
rock-hewn temples, can be explained without believing in the actual existence of these gods—why not Christianity?
Religions, like everything else, are born, they grow old and die. They show the handiwork of whole races, and of
different epochs, rather than of one man or of one age. Time gives them birth, and changing environments determine
their career. Just as the portrait of Jesus we see in shops and churches is an invention, so is his character.
The artist gave him his features, the theologian his attributes.

What are the elements out of which the Jesus story was evolved? The Jewish people were in constant expectation of
a Messiah. The belief prevailed that his name would be Joshua, which in English is Jesus. The meaning of the word
is savior. In ancient Syrian mythology, Joshua was a Sun God. The Old-Testament Joshua, who "stopped the
was in all probability this same Syrian divinity. According to tradition this Joshua, or Jesus, was the son
of Mary, a name which with slight variations is found in nearly all the old mythologies. Greek and Hindoo
divinities were mothered by either a Mary, Meriam, Myrrah, or Merri. Maria or Mares is the oldest word for
sea—the earliest source of life. The ancients looked upon the sea-water as the mother of every living thing.
"Joshua (or Jesus), son of Mary," was already a part of the religious outfit of the Asiatic world when Paul
began his missionary tours. His Jesus, or anointed one, crucified or slain, did in no sense represent a new or
original message. It is no more strange that Paul's mythological "savior" should loom into prominence and cast
a spell over all the world, than that a mythical Apollo or Jupiter should rule for thousands of years over
the fairest portions of the earth.

It is also well known that there is in the Talmud the story of a Jesus, Ben, or son, of Pandira, who
lived about a hundred years before the Gospel Jesus, and who was hanged from a tree. I believe this Jesus
is quite as legendary as the Syrian Hesous, or Joshua. But may it not be that such a legend accepted as
true—to the ancients all legends were true—contributed its share toward marking the outlines of the later
Jesus, hanged on a cross? My idea has been to show that the materials for a Jesus myth were at hand, and that,
therefore, to account for the rise and progress of the Christian cult is no more difficult than to explain
the widely spread religion of the Indian Chrishna, or of the Persian Mithra. [Footnote: For a fuller discussion
of the various "christs" in mythology read Robertson's Christianity and Mythology and his Pagan Christs.]

Now, why have I given these conclusions to the world? Would I not have made more friends—provoked a warmer
response from the public at large—had I repeated in pleasant accents the familiar phrases about the glory
and beauty and sweetness of the Savior God, the Virgin-born Christ? Instead of that, I have run the risk
of alienating the sympathies of my fellows by intimating that this Jesus whom Christendom worships
today as a god, this Jesus at whose altar the Christian world bends its knees and bows its head,
is as much of an idol as was Apollo of the Greeks; and that we—we Americans of the twentieth
century—are an idolatrous people, inasmuch as we worship a name, or at most, a man of whom we
know nothing provable."

[Kevin]

That's one way of looking at it. I'd say it's a matter of context, really.

Yes, it is! You are entirely correct! I am reminded of an instance in the Bible where it mentions the Sun rising in the sky. Well someone considers that proof that the Bible is in error since it is not actually the sun rising but the rotation of the earth that accounts for the apparent motion of the Sun. I believe it does actually move a bit but that's beside the point. Galileo mentioned to his accusers his belief that the Bible was not meant to be a science book. It would be nice if atheists, finally, would come around to his POV on this matter!

[soniat2]

"I Peter 2: 7 Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner,
8 And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed."

[tat tvam asi]

Jesus was the Word(Logos).

[1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
[2] The same was in the beginning with God.
[3] All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
[4] In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
[5] And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
[6] There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
[7] The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
[8] He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
[9] That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
[10] He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
[11] He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
[12] But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
[13] Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
[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.

The obvious answer here is that the book of John is the latest Gospel to be written (late 2nd century arrival into history) and is the most Egyptian of the four. That is the Gospel that happens to be concerned with inserting the divinity of Jesus. The word (Logos)," I and the Father are one", are all found here in John at the tail end of the Gospel arrangement. And it seems addressed to try and refute Docetic / Gnostic type audiences by using their own familiar symbolism to convert members over to the growing orthodoxy.

The quote mine attempt in Psalms is a perfect example of the author trying to find something in the OT which could be used to justify calling Jesus God in some way. But the actual verse is referring back to El Elyon addressing the Elohim pantheon of many "Gods", not God addressing the common people of Israel as "Gods". It's talking about a supreme God saying to the other lower Gods of the pantheon, 'did I not say you are Gods.' It goes back to the older Polytheism in ancient Judaism. And it was twisted around by the author of John to try and promote the divinity of Jesus in his efforts. When you look closely the intentions and mistakes of the Gospel writers began to shine bright and stand out. Perhaps the writer didn't realize that he was pulling quotes from one the most telling sections of the bible which exposes the old Polytheism of ancient Israel? It depends on whether or not the author was aware of the polytheistic nature ofthe texts in question. He saw something that seemed to imply that God was calling the people of Israel "Gods" and that technically he could claim that Jesus is God with a defense against the charge of blasphemy. But in the end the whole attempt crumbles apart. The actual context of Psalms 82-83 is that the God's of the Elohim pantheon were being consigned to stumbling around in the darkness of Sheol for their mismanagement, where their stumbling causes earthquakes:

[v_serkov]

Just words can't be evidence by itself