Boaz,

Can't you keep the poor Aussie Mossie out of your theology debate?
I mean why don't you pick on someone your size? Jewish, Bhuddists,atheists, all the other beliefs who don't believe in your faith altogether.

Muslims believe in Jesus pbuh teachings as well. We just disagree on who he is. But why would that be a point of animosity?
Why are we the only 'other' you see? If you can't love us, can you be fair and distribute your hate evenly : -)

Peace,

CJMorgan,

Thank you for your kind words. I think History sometimes can help to gain a measure of focus, even if one cannot dot the "i"s and cross the "t"s.

BOAZ,

Greetings.

The Romans with all their religions were allowing various believers, live and let live, and, hedging their bets. Its was a bit like a religious equivalent to multiculturism. Monothesism was seen to be exclusive and antisocial and dangerous [offended other gods].

The growth of Christianity, after Constantine, would have been influenced by Christians being ligitimised, and therefore the Religion gained greater social mobility.

What about God the Mother? Yahweh's mother? :)

Interesting question

The full-blown Trinitarian doctrine took centuries to evolve, as did the Chalcedonian insistence that Jesus is both fully man and fully divine. Both can set heads spinning even today.

Picking John’s Gospel as your benchmark is a bit sneaky – of all the scriptures it has the most overt and deliberate agenda for presenting Jesus as God.

John was probably the last Gospel to be written. One theory is that the earlier the scriptures, the less developed their sense of Jesus’ divinity, and the later they ascribe it to him.

Paul’s letters include the earliest NT writing. He seems to think Jesus was an ordinary human who only entered into sonship only his resurrection, at God’s initiative: “… who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead …” (Romans 1.3-4).

Peter’s proclamation “God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36) also maybe reflects a view of the early church that Jesus’ status was something conferred on him, perhaps after the crucifixion, rather than being an innate characteristic from birth.

Mark’s is the earliest Gospel. It’s most common title identifies Jesus as “Son of Man” and Mark uses the phrase “son of God” only once, at Jesus’ baptism, where he seems to acquire the title on God’s nomination for the first time. Mark has no birth story.

Luke and Matthew introduce elaborate (and very different) nativity myths to establish Jesus’ divinity from his birth.

John, of course, opens with that magnificent poem echoing Genesis 1 and claiming a pre-existing divinity for Jesus from “the beginning”. Stunning poetry, fascinating theology, but not necessarily historically definitive.

I’m not arguing that Jesus’ divinity is pure invention – the basis for both the Trinity and Chalcedon are certainly there in the NT (and indeed hebrew scriptures). But they took a while to work out, and indeed we’re still working them out. The most interesting and important question is what do these formulae point to.

Rhian,

Why would the [divine] Son of God need to be Baptised? Presumably, no original sin?

good question – this was clearly a bit of an embarrassment to later gospel writers (Matthew has John trying to refuse to baptise him, Luke and John kind of skip over it). Some writers argue that the fact it’s embarrassing suggests its authenticity.

It’s unlikely, though, that baptism was interpreted then exactly as it is now. It symbolises a new beginnings and is a public display of Jesus’ identification with John and his cause (maybe Jesus had been a disciple of JtB himself) and with “all of the people”.

New beginnings, solidarity, a symbolic passing through the waters of the re(e)d sea and Jordan – all eliciting divine approval. Much more interesting than focussing on sin alone, don’t you think?

God is only a human concept.With the development of our intellect we may well find something better to explain our inadaquacies.

A human Jesus is a far more powerful concept than an immortal infallible God,since humans must evolve and rise to the challenge,while God has reached the nemisis of perfect existence.How boring!

My next question for David Boaz is;Does his God evolve?