The Bible Denies the Divinity of Jesus

[lid2]

Please don’t misunderstand; my point , I really don’t like misunderstanding of my intentions, It is not an assault on any religion, Christians take their information about Jesus from the Bible, which includes the Old and New Testaments. These contain four biblical narratives covering the life and death of Jesus. They have been written, according to tradition, respectively by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They are placed at the beginning of the New Testament and comprise close to half of it.

Encyclopedia Britannica notes that "none of the sources of his life and work can be traced to Jesus himself; he did not leave a single known written word. Also, there are no contemporary accounts written of his life and death. What can be established about the historical Jesus depends almost without exception on Christian traditions, especially on the material used in the composition of the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, which reflect the outlook of the later church and its faith in Jesus.

Question: What do you think of below sites:
The Bible Denies the Divinity of Jesus

The Bible - A Closer Look!
islamtomorrow.com/bible/

Who Was Jesus According to Jesus?
islaminfo.com/new/jesus.asp

IS THE BIBLE GODS WORD?
jamaat.net/bible/Bible1-3.html

The Islamic and Christian views of Jesus: a comparison
soundvision.com/Info/Jesus/inIslam.asp

THE TRUTH ABOUT JESUS
sultan.org/articles/Jesus.html

Christ in Islam
home2.swipnet.se/~w-20479/Christ.htm

Mary & Jesus in Quran

islamworld.net/

 

[srlucado]

Gosh, billions of people and 2,000 years of tradition are wrong, and you’re the only guy who ever got it right!

Wow, what was I thinking? I guess I’ll burn my Bible!

(…Why do people waste time on posts like this?)

 

[Charlie_Zeaiter]

… Encyclopedia Britannica notes that "none of the sources of his life and work can be traced to Jesus himself; he did not leave a single known written word…

We could of told you that.

It wasn’t His mission to leave us a book. It was mission to leave us a Church. And we know His mission is divine because He is the one who fulfilled prophecy.

 

[LittleDeb]

Christians take their information about Jesus from the Bible,

You are misinformed. This is by no means the foundation of Christianity. The early Church predates a completed canon of Scripture by nearly 400 years.

I believe that your proper thread title need be: ‘My personal interpretation of the Bible is that it denies the divinity of Jesus.’

Please seek the Truth about Christianity.

 

[OnlyJesus]

Jesus mission was to show God’s love and save man’s souls for eternity. Jesus Christ said love your enemies not kill the infidels. Vengeance is mine says the Lord, I will repay.

He was fully God who became fully man in order to be tempted by sin in the same manner we are. We sinned and lost but Christ overcame. He laid down his life on the cross for our sins.

We are in the age of Grace, the age of the Gentiles…when this age ends, the day of God’s wrath begins and the times will become so evil by the One World Order where government and false religion, that murdering kind will rule everyone…and Christ will appear as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, no more the suffering servant but the One who will exact justice on the false religion.

 

[East_Anglican]

The Bible Denies the Divinity of Jesus?

Then please explain these verses for us.

John 1
The Word Became Flesh
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:14
14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,[a] who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Romans 9:5
Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

Titus 2:13
while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,

2 Peter 1:1
1Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:

John 8:57-58

57"You are not yet fifty years old," the Jews said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”

58"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”

Colossians 2:9
For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,

Colossians 1:15
The Supremacy of Christ ] He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

 

[Mumbles140]

Although not a Catholic, C.S. Lewis was one of the most rational and understandable defenders of the divinity of Christ. He uses many arguments, but my personal favorite is as follows:

When God appeared to Moses as the Burning Bush and Moses asked who He was, God spoke His name, which was written as “I am” because no one dared utter the name that God has given Himself. In the New Testament, when they ask Christ who He is, He declares the same name that was said in front of Moses.

Lewis goes on to explain that people who believe Jesus was a great teacher or prophet, but not God become Man, have to rationally discard that theory. If someone claims to be God, we must assert that they are liars (bad people), insane (incompetent people), or they must be telling the truth. Since we value our great teachers and leaders as people who are neither bad people (or their teachings would be without value) or insane (their teachings would be illogical), then we must accept what they say as the truth. There have been many great religious leaders and teachers over the years, but Christ was the only one to claim divinity. If Christ’s words are written in the Gospels, how can the Bible deny His divinity???

 

[lid2]

OK, I will take it from other side, God revealed a holy book to Jesus called the Injeel, some parts of which may be still available in the teachings of God to Jesus in the New Testament. But this does not mean that the Bible we have today because it is not the original scriptures that were revealed by God. They underwent alterations, additions, and omissions. This was also said by the Committee charged with revising The Holy Bible (Revised Standard Version). This Committee consisted of thirty-two scholars who served as members of the Committee. They secured the review and counsel of an Advisory Board of fifty representatives of the co-operating denominations.

The Committee said in the Preface to The Holy Bible (Revised Standard Version), p. iv, “Sometimes it is evident that the text has suffered in transmission, but none of the versions provides a satisfactory restoration. Here we can only follow the best judgment of competent scholars as to the most probable reconstruction of the original text.

The Committee also said in the Preface, p. vii, Notes are added which indicate significant variations, additions, or omissions in the ancient authorities (Mt 9.34; Mk 3.16; 7.4; Lk 24.32, 51, etc.).

The exact revelation to Moses and Jesus has been lost. What we have today, in the form of the Old Testament and the New Testament was created by men and has gone through significant alteration and translation over the centuries.

Let us take the Christian Gospels, for example, and in doing this we intend no slight on what Christians believe. There were many written versions of the Gospel. “Gospel” means “Good News”. A Gospel is not meant to be a biography of Jesus. If it was supposed to be biography, we would see that different Gospels say different things which often contradict each other. No, the Gospels say things about Jesus and who he was.

Of the many Gospels written, the Christian Church has chosen four for its scriptures. Even Biblical scholars would not suggest that the words attributed to Jesus in these Gospels are necessarily the words that Jesus spoke. In a sense, the Gospel writers put these words into Jesus’ mouth to highlight different parts of his teaching, for example about love or about peace.

I must repeat, no criticism is implied of Christianity. No one is suggesting that the Gospel writers maliciously altered the words revealed to Jesus. On the contrary, out of an exaggerated love for him they attributed things to him which they believed to be true. In doing so, though, the original words of Jesus and the original message revealed to him, were lost.

They no longer exist today. We can no longer say with certainty that Jesus said this or that or that he did this or that.

The result of these changes, then is that the basis of what the Jews and the Christians believe has become distorted over time and is the creation of men, rather than the revelation of Almighty Allah. Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus were all prophets of Allah.

The message that was revealed to the Jews, though, has been altered through translation and re-printing and re-telling. The Jews came to believe that a Messiah would restore their Kingdom and that they, alone, are the Chosen People of God.

“Yahweh,” by the way, is simply the Hebrew word for God. “Allah” is the Arabic word, used by all Arabs, whether they are Christian or Muslim. Christians, out of an exaggerated love for Jesus, began to see him as more than human, God’s Son, who came to redeem the world from the effects of Adam’s sin.

It would take many pages to explain this properly, but this summary tries to explain why Christians, Muslims and Jews differ to this day, even though they were all a part of the original revelation. The Jews believe that God’s revelation ended with the Old Testament and they now await the coming of a Messiah. Christians believe God’s revelation to have ended in the person of Jesus, who was that Messiah. Neither of these religions, then, accept that Islam adds anything to what God had wanted to say.

 

[East_Anglican]

OK, I will take it from other side, God revealed a holy book to Jesus called the Injeel, some parts of which may be still available in the teachings of God to Jesus in the New Testament.

And then we head into classic Gnosticism.

As Jesus spoke what God The Father told him, it’s obvious that this book called the Injeel didn’t exist.

Gods word has never been lost. The truth has always prevailed.

When Jesus said that he and God The Father are one he meant that they were one.

 

[SteveLohr]

Lid2-
Based on your citations, I’m assuming you are Muslim. Is this correct? The reason I’m asking is that it may help fashion a response to your questions.

Generally speaking, the modern text of the Hewbrew Scriptures is believed to be very accurate renditions of the original text. For instance, the 2 copies of Isaiah discovered in 1947 (the Dead Sea Scrolls) were 95% identical to standard Hebrew text. The few differences were entirely due to obvious scrivener’s errors or differences in spelling. Likewise, the Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, written in 300 BC show that the standard Hewbrew text is substantially identical to that of 300 BC. The accuracy of the translations of the New Testament is estimated to be 99.5% from the orginial documents. (Source: carm.org/evidence/textualevidence.htm). We can go into the reasons for this, if you are interested. If you are interested, you might want to check an outline I’ve posted at:

geocities.com/stevelohr2001/

Just go to the link titled “Course Outline.” The material beginning around footnote 172 might be of interest to you

As far as the selection of the canon-That topic has been exhaustively debated both here and elswhere. Needless to say, the Gnostic gospels have never been considered to be part of the cannon. Think of them as inauthentic haddith. We can discuss the reasons for that, if you are interested.

Regards,

SteveLohr

 

[John7]

The Bible Denies the Divinity of Jesus

no it doesn’t

John 1:18 “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”

so who is the only-begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father?..Moohamed? not a chance

 

[Prodigal_Child]

Wouldn’t you agree that what comes later cannot contradict what is written previously? What is written later MUST be understood in the context of what is written previously – that the two cannot contradict, correct? Numbers 23:19 God is not a Man that he should lie, nor a Son of Man that he should repent.

If there is a contradiction, then either what comes later, or both, must get tossed. Tossing the former is not an option, as it is the foundation for the latter.

 

[Claire_from_DE]

Wouldn’t you agree that what comes later cannot contradict what is written previously? What is written later MUST be understood in the context of what is written previously – that the two cannot contradict, correct? Numbers 23:19 God is not a Man that he should lie, nor a Son of Man that he should repent.

If there is a contradiction, then either what comes later, or both, must get tossed. Tossing the former is not an option, as it is the foundation for the latter.

God the Son took on a human nature (without ceasing to be God) after this was written. Also, you must take verses in their context.

 

[Claire_from_DE]

OK, I will take it from other side, God revealed a holy book to Jesus called the Injeel, some parts of which may be still available in the teachings of God to Jesus in the New Testament. But this does not mean that the Bible we have today because it is not the original scriptures that were revealed by God. They underwent alterations, additions, and omissions. This was also said by the Committee charged with revising The Holy Bible (Revised Standard Version). This Committee consisted of thirty-two scholars who served as members of the Committee. They secured the review and counsel of an Advisory Board of fifty representatives of the co-operating denominations.

Both the Jews and the early Church were extremely careful to transmit their oral and written traditions.

The exact revelation to Moses and Jesus has been lost. What we have today, in the form of the Old Testament and the New Testament was created by men and has gone through significant alteration and translation over the centuries.

God spoke to Moses face to face, not through a book given him. Jesus didn’t need a book; his knowledge came directly through his oneness with the Father.

Of the many Gospels written, the Christian Church has chosen four for its scriptures. Even Biblical scholars would not suggest that the words attributed to Jesus in these Gospels are necessarily the words that Jesus spoke. In a sense, the Gospel writers put these words into Jesus’ mouth to highlight different parts of his teaching, for example about love or about peace.

Actually Jesus did speak those words. The gospel writers had to select from the many words and actions of Jesus but when they say he said something, it was actually something he said.

I must repeat, no criticism is implied of Christianity. No one is suggesting that the Gospel writers maliciously altered the words revealed to Jesus. On the contrary, out of an exaggerated love for him they attributed things to him which they believed to be true. In doing so, though, the original words of Jesus and the original message revealed to him, were lost.

They no longer exist today. We can no longer say with certainty that Jesus said this or that or that he did this or that.

The result of these changes, then is that the basis of what the Jews and the Christians believe has become distorted over time and is the creation of men, rather than the revelation of Almighty Allah. Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus were all prophets of Allah.

The message that was revealed to the Jews, though, has been altered through translation and re-printing and re-telling. The Jews came to believe that a Messiah would restore their Kingdom and that they, alone, are the Chosen People of God.

“Yahweh,” by the way, is simply the Hebrew word for God. “Allah” is the Arabic word, used by all Arabs, whether they are Christian or Muslim. Christians, out of an exaggerated love for Jesus, began to see him as more than human, God’s Son, who came to redeem the world from the effects of Adam’s sin.

It would take many pages to explain this properly, but this summary tries to explain why Christians, Muslims and Jews differ to this day, even though they were all a part of the original revelation. The Jews believe that God’s revelation ended with the Old Testament and they now await the coming of a Messiah. Christians believe God’s revelation to have ended in the person of Jesus, who was that Messiah. Neither of these religions, then, accept that Islam adds anything to what God had wanted to say.

Jesus was killed because the Jewish leaders were upset because he claimed to be God’s son, one with the Father. Even apart from the biblical writings, the divinity of Jesus was taught from the earliest days of the church.

What Muslims teach about Moses and Jesus didn’t begin until hundreds of years later.

God did miracles to prove that Moses was chosen by Him. Jesus did miracles. He raised the dead. He came back to life after being beaten, crucified, and having a spear stabbed into his dead heart. He actually went up into the air until he was hidden by clouds. This was witnessed by many of his followers. These followers did miracles in his name.

What miracles did God do to prove that Muhammad was His prophet? Why should we believe that what he said was true? What miracles did his followers do?

You believe that Islam is true and you sincerely try to show us the truth that you believe in. You use reason and real kindness. But we know Jesus is God and is alive today. We have seen God’s action in our lives. We can’t deny what we have experienced.

Christians believe in the truth of the Jewish scriptures. Catholics know that our written and oral Tradition has been passed down from the apostles. There was no break when parts were lost. What is most impressive is how closely the manuscripts agree, not the small differences in something that was copied by hand.

Thank you for your concern for us.

 

[Prodigal_Child]

God the Son took on a human nature (without ceasing to be God) after this was written. Also, you must take verses in their context.

Numbers 23:19 is not timebound. It makes a statement about the nature of God. It is like saying God is just. You cannot therefore add something later to scripture that purports to show God being unjust and then say “Well, that verse was written BEFORE God was unjust.”

 

[Robert_in_SD]

Christians take their information about Jesus from the Bible, which includes the Old and New Testaments.

No. Catholic Christians receive their information from the full deposit of faith received from Christ and the apostles. The canon of the bible was preceded by the Church which survived hundreds of years of persecution under pagan Rome. Through it all the Church protected the letters and gospels that were eventually canonized as the New Testament. The canon of the Old Testament pre-dates the Catholic Church and it foreshadows the Incarnation and the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Second Person of the Holy Trinity.

lid2:

Encyclopedia Britannica notes that "none of the sources of his life and work can be traced to Jesus himself; he did not leave a single known written word.

But His apostles and disciples did. The fact the Jesus Christ’s ministry did not involve the writing of His teachings does nothing to disprove the truth of Christianity.

lid2:

Question: What do you think of below sites: …

I think that they are all false and misguided attempts to disprove the Truth of the Catholic faith.

The bible clearly proves the divinity of Jesus. But where it does, Islam claims it is “corrupted.” So a rational discussion of what the bible teaches cannot be had as between Muslims and Catholics who do not agree on the validity of its message.

Peace,
Robert

 

[Claire_from_DE]

Numbers 23:19 is not timebound. It makes a statement about the nature of God. It is like saying God is just. You cannot therefore add something later to scripture that purports to show God being unjust and then say “Well, that verse was written BEFORE God was unjust.”

But there is information about the nature of God that was only gradually revealed by Him. To the Jews, God revealed Himself as One. He is a spirit, He is everywhere, He is all powerful, He is faithful to His promises, His ways are not our ways, etc

Through Jesus, God entered into human history in a new way (the Word became flesh at a particular time in human history). God did something that He had not done before. He took on a body and He revealed Himself as a Trinity of persons who are totally One. Jesus said He and the Father are one. He would send the Spirit who would lead the church into all truth. They were to baptize in the name (not ‘names’) of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Muhammad didn’t build on what God had revealed; he actually denied it.

 

[lid2]

Muslims believe that nothing in this universe occurs without Allah’s ultimate knowledge. Allah has given human beings a free will to choose to do good or bad deeds. Allah never compels us to do bad things. If someone chooses to practice evil, he should not blame fate for this, because Allah granted him the power to choose between good and bad.
Whatever a human being does and whatever choices he or she makes cannot be excused by referring to predestination, but whatever is beyond one’s will and control may be attributed to predestination.

Back to our subject, Buddha was a reformer who introduced a number of humanistic principles to the religion of India. He did not claim to be God nor did he suggest to his followers that he be an object of worship. Yet, today most Buddhists who are to be found outside of India have taken him to be God and prostrate to idols made in their perception of his likeness.

Creation-worship is the greatest sin that man can commit because it contradicts the very purpose of his creation. Man was created to worship Allah alone; consequently, the worship of creation, which is the essence of idolatry, is the only unforgivable sin. One who dies in this state of idolatry has sealed his fate in the next life. This is not an opinion, but a revealed fact stated by Allah in his final revelation to man.

Jews ignore the fact that the Oneness of God implies the Oneness of the humankind and distort the idea of the chosen status of the Children of Israel to misappropriate exclusiveness for Divine Grace and to claim racial superiority.

The followers of Jesus split up into two sects immediately after the disappearance of Jesus, and one of them eventually eliminated the other. The sect that prevailed followed St Paul, who ingeniously over-ruled many of the fundamental teachings of Jesus. As a result, we have Christianity which preaches Trinity, Original Sin, and Atonement through the suffering and crucifixion of God’s Only Begotten Son etc.

I think both Judaism and Christianity are not now the Original Religion taught by their prophets. But at the same time, there are many beliefs and traits of the Original Religion of God still existing in those two religions; however, even if the title “son of God” was used by Jesus himself one should remember the following points:

1. As a biblical scholar said, “Semitic usage would never have allowed literal sense even though such an expression would be interpreted literally in the Hellenistic world of Jesus followers”.

2.The New Testament Greek words used for “son” are pias and paida, which means ‘servant’ or 'son in the sense of servant, are translated son in reference to Jesus and servant in reference to others in some translations of the Bible (Mufassir, P. 15).

1. The title “son of man” which is a self-designation of Jesus and occurs 81 times in the gospels is the clearest description and emphasis by Jesus on his humanity. The classical interpretation given to this title is that it is used to emphasize the human side of Jesus. Now the question which suggests itself is: Do contemporary Christians emphasize this aspect of Jesus?

Now, as a total contrast we turn to Christianity a religion built not around God, or His book for there was no ‘book’ until 150 years after Jesus’ death. Christianity became built around the personality of Jesus himself. By laying more and more stress upon the magnetic and wonderful personality of Jesus and unable and un-willing to describe the Prophet’s effect upon all who came to him in everyday terms more and more attributes are added to his reputation a man who could perform miracles, bring back the dead to life, heal the leper, cure the blind all by God’s will, is indeed a wonderful man blessed by God born by God’s will to do His service. But after his death, the ‘magical’ personality must be kept alive and ‘Son of God’ appears to suitably qualify all his actions.

Living in a society, strongly flavored by the Greco-Roman gods, all ‘super human,’ the educated early Christians must surely also have been influenced in thought by their surroundings. Paul himself, one of the great teachers of Christianity, was a Hellenized Jew, who never saw or met Jesus during his lifetime. Yet many of his reported sayings show the influence of the times in which he lived. ‘The Living Lord’ was very real to him.

The miraculous nature of Jesus’ birth also could help to give credence to the idea of Jesus identity as son of God. But it is child-like in its 1 + 1 = 2 type philosophy, i.e., God blew into the womb of Mary had Jesus, therefore God is Jesus’ father and Jesus is His son.
What Christians fail to see, and to understand is that in Jesus’ birth and conception we see a touching and wonderful revelation of the Kindness of God.

 

[Claire_from_DE]

The bible clearly proves the divinity of Jesus. But where it does, Islam claims it is “corrupted.” So a rational discussion of what the bible teaches cannot be had as between Muslims and Catholics who do not agree on the validity of its message.

I agree. Muslim beliefs about Jesus come from the Koran, not the Bible. Christians think the Koran is unreliable. Muslims think the same about the Bible. No common ground there.

 

[Selene]

Please don’t misunderstand; my point , I really don’t like misunderstanding of my intentions, It is not an assault on any religion, Christians take their information about Jesus from the Bible, which includes the Old and New Testaments. These contain four biblical narratives covering the life and death of Jesus. They have been written, according to tradition, respectively by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They are placed at the beginning of the New Testament and comprise close to half of it.

Hello Lid,

The Old Testament, which is much older than the New Testament, does say about Jesus’ divinity. The Old Testament existed before any of the New Testament writers and even before Jesus was born, and in it, it does predict Jesus’ divinity.

Isaiah 9:6 For there is a child born for us, a son given to us and dominion is laid on his shoulders; and this is the name they give him: Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty-God, Eternal-Father, Prince-of-Peace.

The Christian God not only teaches us to be humble, but He is capable of being humble Himself. After all, a god who only teaches humility, but doesn’t know how to be humble is useless. Why is it so difficult to believe that Almighty God who teaches mankind to be humble can also be humble Himself? We believe that God humbled Himself into a man because He loves us.

It is very difficult for a non-Christian to understand how Jesus is God. We believe that the Son and Father are both the same and different at the same time. You may ask how this is possible. It is possible, and God has shown even on this earth that it is possible to be one of the same nature and still be different at the same time.

Take “water” as an example. Liquid water, ice, and water vapor all have the exact same composition. All three compose of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. However, despite the fact that all three have the exact same composition, all three are also different in that they have different densities. Ice has a lighter density than liquid water, which is why ice floats on water. Water vapor has an even lighter density. Thus, it is scientifically possible for a substance to be exactly the same and yet different at the same time. God is three persons in One.