A man, a myth, or a miracle? Was this man God? Why or why not?

In Christian theology, a hypostasis or person is one of the three elements of the Holy Trinity. Jesus was both 100% human and 100% God. Which is impossible in the physical world alone but possible within the synergy of the physical and spiritual nature of God.

Which is both inexplicable and totally a matter of faith from my perspective.

The better question is why do we not have proof?

Another good question is why Jesus? Why was Jesus the man necessary?

a basic study of jesus would show that he had power yet chose to be a humble servant type...seems the reasoning is that he didn't live for himself but for god

he never claimed everyone would believe...

better question is why would god take interest in men

Who are you? Who am I?

The better question is why do we not have proof?
Probably because at that time only thing they could do is write about it. Not like today where you can take pictures and video. Jesus proved what he had to prove to the people of the day.
Even with proof people still didn't believe Him. Throughout the bible most of the prophets of God are killed and so is Jesus. God manifested in the Old Testament and people still doubted Him, departed away from Him and didn’t want anything to do with Him.
So it’s all up to the faithful I guess, just like you said. According to the Bible you have to knock and you shall find.
But the whole Bible speaks of another dimension, about heaven and hell after our biological life is over which is extremely hard for someone to grasp because it is out of our scope of reality. And you have to leave the biological body to get in either places I guess.

Another good question is why Jesus? Why was Jesus the man necessary?

According to the Bible:
- Jesus was the Son of God. (Not God)
- Jesus accepted the task willingly.
- He knew he was going to suffer.
- A sacrifice was needed for forgiveness of sins.
- He was Holy.
- God handed him power over heaven and earth and who was more worthy than His own Son.
Acording to the bible when Jesus was asked who is bigger in the kindom of God, He responded by saying that the smallest is the bigest and the bigest is the smallest.
He definitely tried to teach us something.
According to the bible:
Jesus said that his teachings will turn brother against brother, neighbors against neighbors, mother against daughter and so on.
Another point is that His death, His sacrifice, His teachings and the forgiveness of sins through which He tried to show the pathway to God that few took, will be used as a reason at the judgment of the so called end days. That everyone on the earth will know but didn’t believe.

Maybe He really is the creator. The father.
EX:
I am from europe and I lived in US for many years and my mom and dad still call me, and still ask me to this day if I am ok, if I need something, if they can help me with something. Although I am a grown person and they are the ones that may need help as they are getting older. I also remember my mom when we were kinds not buying herself shoes and using the old ones that caused her leg sores, instead she bought us notebooks and pens so me and my sister can go to school.

So a parent love is a parent love.


From christians to atheists to evolutionists everyone has his/her own opinion on the subject. Maybe if we die we die for good or we may wake up somewhere else.

a really cool guy

The claims regarding Jesus that can be verified within reason bear little resemblance to the stories that made around 2 billion people regard him as a deity.

The natural thing to do is to assume Jesus refers to the "popular" version, and the most accurate description of this is "a myth".

Would you clarify what you mean with "myth"? It certainly isn't a myth according to the definitions of Eliade or Campbell, pretty much trivially, as there's little to no time difference between creation of story and events of the story being told. Cassirers definition equally doesn't fit.

Neither, really does the original greek usage of the term.

[QUOTE=FatherKnowsBest;39913258] Jesus was both 100% human and 100% God. QUOTE]

The first clue to help us understand quantum mechanics

Edit: Eh, I guess T_d was referring to the three choices of the OP. Nvm then. Still, "myth" is pretty much the wrong concept here.

The three modern variations of the term "myth" you bring up are all fairly distinct. How then, could anyone possibly use the term in a manner which would fit them? The last variation you mention "original greek usage" is a fairly sloppy description, the "greeks" were in no more agreement on the term than the three more recent academics you brought up.

But other than your initial deduction is correct; I did not glance to any of these sources in my usage of the term myth. I'm not quite sure how you jump from that to this however:

The fact that you could bring up four definitions of the same term, should tell you that the term is a broad one.

So in essence our conversation is like this:
A: We will conquer them by force!
B: I don't see why you are bringing up deformation?


A classic narrative containing supernatural elements, presented as if true but focusing more on embellished storytelling than historicity.

Which is a fairly typical understanding of the term.

Couldn't you argue that whoever was thought to be the messiah would instantly inherit hundreds / thousands of years worth of history/legend/myth as contained in the Old Testament?

Also, since the Trinity was mentioned, what are your thoughts about retroactively reviewing the Old Testament scriptures insofar as the Trinity being a consistent idea, as Christians must. I just wanted to ask what you thought, as someone who is presumably rather well educated in the material.

Eh. No, it isn't (baring evidence to the contrary). The simplest reason is that according to this understanding,

- the story of Prometheus
- the Enkomion to a persian Emperor
- the story of Jesus
- the Little Match Girl
- the platonic story about the two parted sphere

could all be considered myths. Which they are clearly not.

That I could bring up different accounts of functional definitions doesn't mean that the respective scholars were at odds about the rough class of texts to which those definitions should apply.

Just have a read-through here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythos You'll find that at the heart of a myth lies its explanatory power. Myths explain stuff: how the world came into being, how one should behave, why society is structured the way it is. That's what makes it different from fairy tale, legend and Enkomion.

The gospels don't explain/lay out a cosmology; nor give a mythological grounding of society; their ethical teaching comes through recounting someone elses (supposedly historical) words.

They are intended as historiography (most clearly seen in Luke 1). Which is also the reason why gospels started to pop up roughly 2-3 generations after Jesus - the memory started to fade, stories started to diverge considerably, a normative account was needed.

Given that, you'll find PhD-theses with titles such as "Mark as a hellenistic Enkomion" or "Jesus as King", puning on the literary genre, but you'll not find much in the way of "The Jesus-Myth".

Sure - to an extent. Stuff like that happens. For example, you have the pucelle-myth in medieval france (one day a fair maiden will come to free france from <insert-current-oppressor-here>), which then gets applied to Jeanne d'Arc and the brits. As a result, she's seen through the lense of the pucelle-myth. That doesn't make her a myth, though. She's still a historical figure, having lived and acted etc. (That you'll frequently see mentionings of Jeanne d'Arc as the "national myth" of france refers to her only insofar as contemporary france in a way grounds the creation of the nation in her. IoW: It's a myth about the Nation, not Jeanne.)

Bolded: No they don't. I'm very confident (and quite unperturbed) that the OT (or at least the vast majority of it) had no conception of a trinity. There's a difference between claiming it's a constant idea and insisting that the OT image of God is compatible with it. In a view that allows for a succession of revelations of increasing "depth", I can easily hold that the OT sincerely believes and talks about a "strict" monotheism, yet refers to a God that turns out to be trinitaric.
Given that, I think most attempts to more-or-less aggressively reinterpret OT writings as to exhibit trinitaric concepts or tendencies aren't really helpful. At best they seem loosely fitting, bordering on contrived, at worst they tend to come close to "OT Markionism".

Mostly myth. Few salient facts are even known about the man. He was basically a failure. St Paul and the emperor Constantine made him important. Otherwise your post may have asked about Zeus (or Jupiter the Roman equivalent ) or Mithra.

Shaul = "Paul" summed it up quite nicely in

Php 2:5-11 (NET)

⁵ You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had,
⁶ who though he existed in the form of God
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
⁷ but emptied himself
by taking on the form of a slave,
by looking like other men,
and by sharing in human nature.
⁸ He humbled himself,
by becoming obedient to the point of death
—even death on a cross!
⁹ As a result God highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow
—in heaven and on earth and under the earth—
¹¹ and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord
to the glory of God the Father.


The above scripture is quite remarkable: every human being will eventually confess that Yeshua the Messiah is "Lord" to the glory of the "One True G-d", the Father. This points to human beings will be existing beyond physical death, and that all of humanity will recognize who the Mashiach, Yeshua really is, all to the glory of Hashem.



Yeshua, the Messiah, was not merely a man, but he is or his name is the "Word of G-d" or the "Divine Word":

Rev 19:11-16 (NET)

¹¹ And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. ¹² His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. ¹³ He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. ¹⁴ And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. ¹⁵ From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will ^[d]rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the ^[e]wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. ¹⁶ And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

d. Revelation 19:15 Or shepherd
e. Revelation 19:15 Lit wine press of the wine of the wrath of God’s anger

I keep seeing Christians say something regarding the quote 'every knee shall bow', that it will happen either voluntarily from those that worship, or from God smashing the knee of the rest with his rod of iron.

Is this part about the iron-rod-smashing specifically from scripture, or just another menacing Christian slogan? Either way, it's one of the more disturbing lines I have heard: bow down or be knee-capped.

I cant see a mentioning of a knee smashing in that pericope ... ?

Assuming a 'pericope' refers to the text in manglers post (and not the thing you look through to see around corners or from below the ocean's surface), if there was a mention of knee smashing in it, I wouldn't have really needed to ask if it was scriptural.

It's a big book. Perhaps its mentioned or alluded to elsewhere?

You could probably have googled pericope in the time it took you to write that out

Well, for one, there's this thing called google for all your inqusitive needs.

2nd, given that the first four hits of the search phrase "smash knee bible" returns suggestions about how to cure ganglion cysts and prevent injuries in badminton, I call bull**** on you "keep seeing Christians say" something to the effect of "bow down or be knee-capped". Similar for the search phrase "smash knee god" (notable 2nd hit: VideoGame/Super Smash Bros. - Television Tropes & Idioms).

You could just tell him what is meant by every knee bending to God and how that will happen to those who arent followers of him...That would take the fun out of putting down and propping up. But it would be more productive.

Jesus is my neighbor's landscaper and he will knee cap someone for $100