Are there many people out there that believe in god but not that Jesus was his actual son ? See below .

[ginorwine]

A few people in my local church believe in god but think that Jesus was a profit like any other such as Buddha. I have always thought that the whole premis of christianity was based around the reserection . I have found that the unitarian church accepts the view that Jesus was a human and an inspired and loving phropet and healer and Christian . This makes sense to me .i would feel more comfortable if this could be discussed as it seems almost a taboo way of seeing Jesus. I'm very intrested to hear others views around the view that you can believe in god as see Jesus as a historical figure rather than god on earth in the literal sense .

This is the issue I had with the Christian concept of Jesus.
I do not believed Jesus lied. But the message ( the scriptures) were written long after he left. The meaning may well have changed over this time.
If god is Jesus how could the devil have tried to tempt him in the desert? Surely god could never be tempted by his own creation. And who was Jesus praying to ?
And if Mary is Jesus mother would she also be gods mother?
Makes more sense Jesus being a profet or holy man. You can still take the message of loving god and your neighbour home with you.

If Jesus was just a "good man" its hard to reconcile his apostles being martyred such as Peter who was crucified (possibly upside down) in Rome and his followers growing rapidly across the Middle East, Africa and Europe while being severely persecuted.

The early church Fathers such as Clement (who wrote in 90 AD in Rome) Ignatius, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Eusebius and many others have left us plenty of written evidence of the trials and beliefs of the earliest Christians. And they were willing to die not because they just thought Jesus was a wise man.

Christians have been clear for around 1600 years that Christ is both divine and human.

So for around 400 years at the beginning they didn't think he was divine?

Shouldn't they have been more sure at the start because they had met him and seen the miracles and less sure later when they were relying on hearsay?

Lookingforfocus, that ought to be a good argument, but sadly we've seen many people sacrifice themselves for other gods and ideologies.

I guess I didn't word that very well as I am not attempting to convince anyone of Christ's divinity. My point is just that we have written records from the earliest times (the first century AD, or CE if you prefer) from Christians who believed as they do now, that Christ was fully man and fully God. They were also writing and gathering documents that were later complied into the New Testament.

I imagine the earlier poster who mentioned 1600 years is dating from when it was defined doctrine from a Council of the church. It was believed from the beginning but was defined when clarifying against heresy.

Christians were always in agreement about the nature of Jesus as being both man and divine - the very earliest Christian hymns and prayers made this very explicit (Philippians 2 v 6-8 for example) - these complete phrases were written down incredibly early on for writings from antiquity, and they were used from only a few years after Jesus' death and resurrection.

The church got their acts together with scripture 400 years later and were unified in their creeds etc; but this only reflected what their practise was already - nothing was included which wasn't already widely accepted and embraced among Christian communities.

all the biblical sources were written so long after his time and with such a lot of bias and agenda that there's no reason to think what's said in then has much at all to do with what Jesus may or may not have said

A common misconception, this, that the NT material was written 'long' after the time of Jesus and then changed to suit bias. In fact, it is unprecedented among other writings of similar antiquity in its' closeness to the time - measured in decades as opposed to centuries (cf Alexander the Great for an example on this.) The gospels were written between 30 and 50 years after Christ's death and resurrection, and the Pauline letters even earlier, giving fascinating glimpses into very, very early Christian practise and belief. The 'bias' in the gospels only go so far as to reflect the different writers - Matthew, for example, writing for a Jewish audience and Luke writing for a more educated audience. The use of the same source material means not a lot more than the fact that they came from the same source; ie the rigorous oral tradition used at the time, with whole chunks being memorised word for word and written meticulously as taught and learned.

'Close' by historical standards - close in unheard of terms, in fact. And even now, 30 years is hardly ancient history - and we don't have the oral tradition, the internet equivalent of the day

I would not simply 'like to believe', I have studied it in a deal of depth, challenged my own beliefs and remain convinced. 'Liking to believe' implies a level of cognitive dissonance. I believe, ultimately, not simply because of study and fact; but from experience - but realise that is completely subjective and unquantifiable. It remains though that I have found belief in Jesus to be tenable from an intellectually robust position, after reading widely and facing all the refutations multiple times. I like doing it though, so do keep them coming

It is indeed a variety of different types of text, and so we need to treat it accordingly with all the tools of textual criticism we have to hand. It amazes me how it stands up to these again and again. The Pauline letters could not be seen as 'history' in any sense of the word as it stands, but more of joining in a conversation of what was actually happening in the churches at that time - like being a fly on the wall. So we have to treat them as such while digging into what we can find from them to give any historicity. Which is quite a lot about early Christian ritual and practise.

Wasn't meant to be patronising, sorry if it came across that way, I genuinely enjoy reading round and engaging in debate.

I am a card carrying atheist, but I would still be interested to know is how those that do believe Jesus really is the son of god, define "son" in their minds.
What I'm getting at is that my son is my son because my DP and I jointly reproduced him...

what I would be interested to know

THe means by which books were chosen for Canon inclusion was a rigorous process. Books had to be in wide usage and in agreement with Christian theology and practise. The books to which you refer are indeed fascinating. They were written far later than the four gospels, never in wide usage among Christians and made some very bizarre claims which didn't in any way tally with Christian theology and practise. Hence were not included. If any books could be say to be cloaked in legend and obscurity it was them, a fact widely agreed on by biblical scholars.

On phone so giving up due to daft autocorrect for now

The 'translations' are incredibly close to the original Greek, of which we have fragments going back to the first century. Errors in translation have been shown to be unimportant errors such as spelling mistakes and none that actually changed central meaning of the material. Incredible really given the huge number of fragments found, let alone what was around. We can be sure that what we read now is consistent with what was actually written. Come back to you on the Greek - must cook :)