If Jesus Never Called Himself God, How Did He Become One?

http://www.npr.org/2014/04/07/300246095/if-jesus-never-called-himself-god-how-did-he-become-one

by ValentineC • 12 years ago

17 33 12 years ago

npr.org

danieltillett• 12 years ago

Wasn't it decided by committee like all important decisions [0].

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

JacobSkyler3• 12 years ago

No, the link you provided tells you what Nicaea was about. It standardised the method for calculating Easter and condemned Arianism. (Arianism denied the trinity, not Jesus's divinity.)

shmerl• 12 years ago

According to Jewish sources it's rather simple. He was made into one by his followers, primarily Paul (Shaul) in order to advance Christianity. Author's conclusion in the end is pretty much the same.

jrs99• 12 years ago

that's a question that many people, such as isaac newton, were obsessed with. to newton, it was a total fraud.

It's very possible that sometime after Jesus reached puberty, God decided that he was the same thing as Jesus.

cup• 12 years ago

If Jesus had not been declared God by his followers, his followers would've remained a sect within Judaism — a small Jewish sect, and if that was the case it would not have attracted a large number of gentiles.

It's interesting he raises that point because in Islam Jesus is considered a prophet and explicitly not God and in doing so tries to establish the argument that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all the same religion from the same source but that the differences are a result of changes (human error or addition) over time. Hence, while being the most recent of the monotheistic religions, Muslims argue that its a return to the 'original' religion of Abraham, Moses, Jesus etc.

azth10• 12 years ago

Islam maintains that it is the religion of all the messengers (read: Submission). Abraham, Moses, and Jesus were all Muslims (Submitters).

On a side note, there exists at least one sect of Christianity that does not believe in Jesus as God.

JacobSkyler3• 12 years ago

In Muhammad's time there were quite a few sects that denied Jesus was God. He would have been familiar with the concept before he started getting revelations.

It's interesting to note that Muhammad also taught that a lot of other historical figures were prophets too, e.g. Alexander the Great.

waps8• 12 years ago

That's only true in a really superficial way. It's rhetoric. They do because the quran says "when people ask about Isa (Jesus), tell them that he was a muslim". And it really does not go deeper than that.

If you question, for example, the diametrically opposite positions of Jesus and muhammad (one of these guys fought his followers to prevent them from defending his own life, the other massacred at least 10000 people, assembled armies and basically fought wars, and fought wars, and fought wars, until he died in a military encampment (google "Khaybar" for example), so they don't agree on much).

Here is an example that does not really need further explanation to illustrate that they were VERY different :

  Abdullah b. 'Umar reported that a Jew and a Jewess were brought to Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) who had committed 
  adultery. Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) came to the Jews and said: What do you find in Torah for one who commits 
  adultery? They said: We darken their faces and make them ride on the donkey with their faces turned to the opposite direction (and 
  their backs touching each other), and then they are taken round (the city). He said: Bring Torah if you are truthful. They brought 
  it and recited it until when they came to the verse pertaining to stoning, the person who was reading placed his hand on the verse 
  pertaining to stoning, and read (only that which was) between his hands and what was subsequent to that. Abdullah b. Salim who was 
  at that time with the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: Command him (the reciter) to lift his hand. He lifted it and 
  there was, underneath that, the verse pertaining to stoning. Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) pronounced judgment about 
  both of them and they were stoned. Abdullah b. 'Umar said: I was one of those who stoned them, and I saw him (the Jew) protecting 
  her (the Jewess) with his body.

(reference: Sahih Muslim, Book 017, Number 4211)

(incidentally can a muslim here answer me one question : who is the morally better person in the above story ? the prophet ? Or the Jew ? Because we all know the answer to that question)

Jesus made the exact same judgement, only the story differs a LOT :

  Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat 
  down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the 
  act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd. “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 
  The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”. They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against 
  him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, 
  “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”. Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. When the 
  accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd 
  with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”. 
  “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

(John 8:1-11)

Of course, this is objectively comparing religions, and sadly, like any other objective comparison, one of them clearly emerges as superior. This will likely get downvoted. Is this racist ? I don't know, I don't understand how it could possibly be racist, but most people seem to think it is.

Please keep in mind that muslims don't really believe in this stuff. What they do believe in is their group, their family and the consequences of saying anything different. It is childish and naive to expect an adherent of a religion that is not based on rationality to respond to this in any coherent way to stuff like this, and they won't. Please note that islam is based on rhetoric and conquest, not on rational argument.

Also I'm not trying to attack islam here (even though I will admit I do not like islam at all). It's obvious that in a Christian country with laws based on canon law, obviously Christianity is going to match common morals and other religions are not going to match "everyday" morality. That happens in a lot of cases. I'm attempting to illustrate an objective difference. If I wanted to do attack it, I'd use very different verses, illustrating how and when "allah's revelations" were sent down, like pointing out that allah "sent down" the verses allowing the prophet more wives 5 seconds after muhammad commented on the beauty of a woman, after one of his companions pointed out he already had 4 wives.

waps8• 12 years ago

Islam is a really bad example, since it's an extremely late entry in the whole history of God, as such it is not a good basis to study the God concept at all. If you want to scientifically validate the existence of an eternal God it makes a lot of sense to go for the oldest sources, and the oldest sources are the pentateugh (the first 5 books of the bible). There is precious little evidence the quran as a book even existed before the 19th century (some stories can be traced back to ~800 AD, but they are copies of pages of the Arameic bible, they are not unique to the quran. Also the national library of Turkey and some organisation in Baghdad claim to have older qurans but they won't show them to anyone. Several articles by an ex-keeper of that book in Turkey indicate that this is because there are significant differences). Despite how arabic script looks, arabic is actually not that far removed from greek (as in there exists a literal transliteration between arabic and greek that reduces the language difference to vocabulary, more or less). The older qurans aren't even in Arabic, they're kufic (which is a dialect of Arameic, and "just happens" to be the dialect a significant part of the bible is written in. Long story short : the quran is an especially badly made copy of the Arameic new testament with significant amended by a successful warlord with Jewish heritage)

But if you look at real early texts you will find no mention of God. So how do you arrive from the early books to God ? Well, easy : anything expressed in one of the passive tenses refers to God(s) (except where it really doesn't make sense). Meaning in the really old portions of the bible (we actually have old versions of the bible, in contrast to the quran), you will not find a sentence like "God made it rain", instead you will find "It was raining" and that is currently getting translated using God. There are other factors that make matters even more confusing.

Even in competing religions' texts you will find this. The Greek religions for example also do this. Until the late Roman republic you almost never find any reference to direct action of any of the Greek/Roman Gods. Rather you will find references that look a lot like today's "lady luck was smiling on him". In stories you will find that, for example, a king "felt inspired by Ares", which I'm sure you can translate for yourself. Or "Ares smiled on the king's forces", indicating he won (note that Greek/Roman Gods were not really part of a pantheon. They are more like "patron saints" of specific families or other groups of people. For example, when there's a battle between Sparta and Athens, either Ares "smiles" or Athena does, meaning this indicates which side won (extremely confusing the first time you read that. You read a story of a battle, with lots of descriptions of fights between generals, heroes, etc. Then suddenly "Ares smiled" and it starts describing logistics of returning the army to the Greek mainland. First time you'll be sitting there "wait, wasn't there a battle ? How did it end ?), and Greek/Roman gods were probably understood to be the personality of a particular city state (or states). The pantheon in Rome is simply meant to indicate an alliance between specific families/states).

azth10• 12 years ago

There is precious little evidence the quran as a book even existed before the 19th century...

Citation needed. I take it you have not read the Quran. The accounts of the Battles of Badr, Uhud, as well as others are sufficient to disprove this claim.

The older qurans aren't even in Arabic, they're kufic (which is a dialect of Arameic, and "just happens" to be the dialect a significant part of the bible is written in.

Again, citation needed. I speak, read, and write Arabic fluently, and this is the first time I ever hear such claim. Quran 12:2 and 39:28 are enough to disprove that. Not to mention all the manuscripts.

kiliancs• 12 years ago

Bahá'ís, a more recent monotheistic world religion, similarly believe that Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Krisha, the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh are all messengers or manifestations of God to humanity that are sent by Him at different times and in different places with a specific message, teachings and law system for the cultural evolutionary stage and needs of the society in which they appear. In this sense, these religions (and here religion means what these prophets send and not what humanity ends up doing with it) are really like different stages of one religion, one eternal process, since they all provide from God and have the same purpose. It is indeed interesting how each of the religions confirms the divinity and the truth of its predecessors and how their adherents fail to recognize the posterior prophets.

o0-0o• 12 years ago

The OP question from the NPR article is a logical fallacy. The story is that there is only one God, and Jesus is the son.

callmeed• 12 years ago

Weird that JC in on HN. Completely odd premise to me. I wasn't aware people discounted the gospel of John when considering this. Here are some of basics as I understand them (as a christian):

* OT prophecies refer to Jesus as "God with us" and "mighty God" [1][2]

* He said "I am in the Father and the Father is in me ..." [3]

* He said "If you had known me, you would have known my Father also." [3]

* He said "I and the Father are one." and immediately afterwards, jews attempted to stone him, citing "because you, being a man, make yourself God." [4]

[1] http://www.esvbible.org/Isaiah+7/ (verse 14) [2] http://www.esvbible.org/Isaiah+9/ (verse 6) [3] http://www.esvbible.org/John+14/ (verse 11, 7) [4] http://www.esvbible.org/John+10/ (verse 29-33)

Note: no desire to debate these points (too busy atm). Just wanted to point out where some get their stance on the topic.

BetterLateThan• 12 years ago

Matthew 19:17 - "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God".

Ryanmf• 12 years ago

I don't know about 'discounting' but John wasn't composed until well after virtually anyone who might have encountered Jesus personally was already dead, near the end of the first century AD. Not exactly the type of source that can be relied upon for accurate, direct quotes.

If Jesus Never Called Himself God, How Did He Become One?

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