OK smart guys... Was Jesus Human or Immortal???...I would really like to know?

Question

Dont you think its strange that only one virsion of the christian bible exist, of corce theres the ing james virsion and what not but theyt only depict him as a devine being. Concidering how many followers Jesus had makes it hard to belive that no one ever wrote there own account of jesuses behavior... maby one of the desipels...

Answer 1

No, I don't think its strange at all -- particularly since it isn't really completely true . That does not indicate that you are lying, but rather that you are underinformed on the subject.

While this is a common assertion by fundamentalists that there is only one version of the Bible, and it has always existing, being in "autograph" form at the time of the early Church -- I'm very much afraid that history shows that not to be true at all.

The canon of the Bible (the books that are included in it) was not formalized until the Council of Carthage -- when it affirmed a resolution of the synod of Hippo recognizing a group of books drawn together and claimed as divine by Bishop Anathasius. Anathasius did not even coin the word canon until 327 and the Council of Carthage did not formalize the list approved by Hippo in 393 until 397, and then sent it on to "the Church across the sea" (Rome) for the Pope's approval.

There are no full copies of what is now considered scripture until the 4th century. There are two copies from the 4th century (Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus) together with hundreds of manuscript fragments of various forms (Papyrus and Vellum Manuscripts and Vellum Palimpsests). Overall there are over 5000 copies of at least part of the present canonical Bible that are from the sixth century or earlier. These range from a few verses to whole books, to Bibles that were read in churches. According to Dr. Bart Ehrman, one of the foremost experts in the world on Textual criticism and Textual reconstruction, those manuscripts have between them at least 200,000 differences. Some of those differences are minor, or meaningless -- but some are very important and would change core Christian doctrines like the Virgin birth of our Lord and his divinity -- among others.

So from a historical perspective, even presuming that the selection of books for canon was divine (which is very difficult to assume since the books were selected by vote of the bishops present) -- there still were many versions, which difficulty was resolved by simply selecting which version would be used -- a selection which is clearly shown by most theologians to have been hit or miss at best.

One does not need to be an expert to see that the Bible is fiction, and not the Word of God. Even the American Bible Society explains scriptural accreation as starting with Hebrew tribesmen telling stories around a campfire. That is exactly where the earliest parts of the Bible started as campfire stories -- then it was expanded through midrash and so forth, written down -- eventually sorted through for concurrence with already determined doctrine at Carthage -- and wala -- you have your single version Bible (well, sort of, more on that at the end of the post).

Looking at the received texts, the idea of Sola Scriptura becomes evidently ludicrous. The Bible says that the world has corners (Isaiah 11:12) and that it sets on pillars (I Samuel 2:8). It says that God accepted a human sacrifice -- he may have prevented Isaac's, but he allowed a general to sacrifice his own daughter without even a murmur, the text giving tacit support to the idea that having given his word, the man had to kill his child. (Judges 11:30-39). It clearly maintains that genocide is often commanded by God (Joshua 10:40-42 and I Samuel 15: 2, 3 and 8) and that, after killing all the adults in a race, taking the female children as sex slaves is permissible (Numbers 31: 17-18).

The God revealed by the Bible is not only both a liar who doesn't know the natural laws of his own world, and a monster, as shown above -- but he has no real regard, even for his own people, whom he forces into cannibalism (Leviticus 26: 27-29) when he is mad at them; or his priests, whose faces he wipes with dung (Malachi 2:1-3).

It is not only gays and lesbians that are hated by bible-god. This monstrosity also suggests killing kids who eat or drink too much (Deuteronomy 21: 18-21), and says that if he is angry with parents he will kill their children (Leviticus 26:22) and he blames things upon children whose great-great-great grandfathers committed the things being blamed on the kids (Exodus 20: 5).

Putting it in a word, bible-god is a monstrosity, a horrific demiurge of evil. Something that even he admits ( Isaiah 45:7 ) [Furthermore, the word used in Hebrew for evil, the word ra' is widely conceded to mean a number of different things: It can mean "wickedness," "mischief," "bad," "trouble," "hurt," "sore," "affliction," "ill," "adversity," "harm," "grievous," and "sad." So no matter what particular interpretation is given of this word -- it has profoundly negative implications. The idea that god is sovereign over the affairs of man makes this even worse, because no matter what interpretation it has, it indicates that bible-god deliberately does harm.]; evil about which he sometimes changes his mind (Exodus 32:14). What a font of unchanging morality -- that almighty God can decide to kill an entire people, and then be talked out of it by a human servant... Furthermore, it is obvious, if God can change his mind, then even if the Bible were not full of errors and horrors, you could not trust that God had not changed his mind on any other issue in it.

So, yes, I suppose if one wants to take as truth a book that says that beetles have four legs instead of six (Leviticus 11: 21-23) and that rabbits chew their cud [which they do NOT] (Deuteronomy 14:7) and if you are willing to, having accepted it as truth, overlook the fact that bible-god routinely changed his mind (I can show you other instances if you wish) then yeah, I suppose its words would matter and gays are therefore going to hell and whatever else.

I on the other hand, while a Christian (as in Christ follower) am NOT a literalist, and do not think that a book of bronze age myths owing heavily to the Sumerian and Egyptian myths in the Old Testament and to a collection of pagan faiths, particularly Mithraism in the New Testament matters at all.

Christianity is centered around love, faith in Christ, and Eucharist. At best the Bible is sacred because of its place in the life of the early church and should be regarded as holy myth -- stress on the myth. And what is a myth? It is fiction.

which brings us at last to my final point. Even in the modern day your assertion that all Christian Bibles are the same is not true. Despite centuries of coercive pressure from one group against others -- still the Catholic version of the received texts varies from the Protestant and both vary from the Orthodox. Furthermore, even within the various protestant denominations there are some differences, and some have emerged over time. If you look at the historical documents section of the "Book of Common Prayer" -- the Anglican/Episcopal guide to the faith and services and so forth -- you will find that in 1549, the emerging Anglican church had a canon of the Old Testament that reflected the addition of two books no longer included, and the deletion of two books now included... For people like me, who are Episcopalians, we do not consider that a big deal, as we know that the Bible is a nice fiction with some historical relevance to the Church -- but nothing more; for a fundamentalist trying to prove that the Bible is the literal word of God in the face of so many contrary facts -- I imagine it must be a bit more confusing.

Kind Regards,

Reynolds
Schenectady, NY
http://www.rebuff.org
[e-mail]

Answer 2

Jesus Christ was just as much the Son of man as He was the Son of God and just as human and just as immortal. He had to be human too so He could say He was tempted as we are except without sin. Jesus never sinned. He got tired. He got hungry so he was a human. He raised to life the dead. He healed the sick, the lame, the possessed He cast out demons so He was immortal God as He transfigured on the mountain talking to Moses and Elijah. He said, "before Abraham was, I am." He said, "I was slain from the foundation of the world." He lives forever. The only way you'll see God the Father is in the human form of Jesus Christ.

Josephus wrote an account of Jesus Christ. So did Irenaeus who set under Polycarp who was taught by John the Apostle.

Answer 3

Version. Course. There's. King. Divine. Considering. Their. Jesus'. Disciples.


Anyway... spelling gets to me, as I'm an editor.

There are a number of different versions of the Bible, from the smallest (Samaritan) to the largest (Ethiopian Orthodox). There are also many many gospels that never made it into the current versions of the Bible. Some depict Jesus in a completely different light. If you wish to see Jesus as something different than what orthodoxy presents him as, you might read "The Other Bible" which contains many different texts that weren't included in most canons.

Answer 4

Jesus was human and devine at the same time-God on earth. Now He is immortal. There is more than one account of Jesus' life, however. Each of the gospels in the bible focus on different aspects of Jesus' life and ministry. They are all seperate books bound together, like an anthology.

Answer 5

there is a raging debate in the scholarly community at this time and the evidence is mounting that the divine jesus of the bible simply did not exist. there is no archeological evidence, there is no non-christian historical evidence, and the gospels themselves have fallen under much suspicion as none were written contemporaneously (at the time the supposed events were happening) and contain many errors of fact and contradict each other on many accounts. so, in my opinion, jesus may have been a live human being preaching some manner of personal philosophy to a populace aching for something to save them from imperial rome and may have been executed for stirring things up as many suffered that fate, but i think his myth was created out of whole cloth by those in position to exploit the masses and his legend grew as so many others have, like paul bunyan and santa claus

Answer 6

Jesus was completely God and completely human at the same time. It may be hard to picture that as possible, but remember, we're talking about Jesus. Some argue that he could not have been immortal because he was killed. My responce is that Jesus was never killed, he laid down his life for us, because if he wanted, he'd only had to say one word to have angels ripping us all to shreds. He realized the sacrifice that needed to be made, and he made it.

Answer 7

I think, Dearest, you're in the wrong catagory but at the time of his life, Jesus was a Human. The Spirit inside of him was Divine (like all the rest of us Children of God) He was just the One that God chose to send to annoy the people in charge and the One who unfortunately who had to get to nailed to the big Tree (Tree or big wooden beam...your choice....either one hurts ALOT) and die. Then the Divine Spirit gets resurrected and becomes Human for a time then goes Home....How's that for Theology from a Small Furry Mammal? The Book of Otter.... I like that....First commandment Be Kind to each other and share your cookies.....

Answer 8

Jesus was human, and like the rest of us Christians, has eternal life, so he is also immortal.

There are some personal accounts like you describe in the apocrypha, including Jesus' childhood. The apocrypha are books that weren't included in the Bible, some for political reasons (early catholics were trying to guard against gnostic beliefs), and others because they were irrelevant to the church.

Answer 9

Jesus was mortal because of his mother. He total control over his mortality because of his father. His life was his to give and he could not die unless he allowed it. He only died when he said, "It is finished."

Oh, and there were many other accounts of Jesus but the false Christian, Emporer Constantine and the Catholic council in Nicaea made their own arbitrary decisions on what would and would not be accepted in the Bible.

Answer 10

The Bible WAS written by some of His disciples, and others. It also says that Christ was "fully God and fully man". This means that He had both natures. Being fully man, He had to suffer the same temptations that we all do, but being fully God, He could not give in to those temptations. It was such a battle within Him that He sweat "great drops of blood".

Answer 11

The Bible says that he is both fully human and fully God. And the disciples did write their own accounts of Jesus. They're called "The Gospel According to Matthew", and, "The Gospel of Luke." Geez!

(this question is in the wrong place.)