Can Jesus be considered as both human and divine?

[Thomas123]

In what manner, can this be done?
Personally speaking, I feel that the message of this human philosophy does not transcend into the 'Divine Realm'.
I would like to debate this point with others.
Thanks.

[Thomas123]

"Sumerians believed in anthropomorphic polytheism, or of many gods in human form, which were specific to each city-state"

This is where the Jewish God/man notion was cradled, ie it is a old Sumerian God type....like human.

[Thomas123]

The Sumerian creation myth can be found on a tablet in Nippur, an ancient Mesopotamian city founded in approximately 5000 BC.

The creation of Earth ( Enuma Elish ) according to the Sumerian tablets begins like this:

When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamut, the mother of them both
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods none had been called into being,
And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained;
Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven,
Lahmu and Lahamu were called into being...

Sumerian mythology claims that, in the beginning, human-like gods ruled over Earth. When they came to the Earth, there was much work to be done and these gods toiled

When the gods like men
Bore the work and suffered the toll
The toil of the gods was great,
The work was heavy, the distress was much.

Anu, the god of gods, agreed that their labour was too great. His son Enki, or Ea, proposed to create man to bear the labour, and so, with the help of his half-sister Ninki, he did. A god was put to death, and his body and blood was mixed with clay. From that material the first human being was created, in likeness to the gods.

"You have slaughtered a god together
With his personality
I have removed your heavy work
I have imposed your toil on man.
…
In the clay, god and man
Shall be bound,
To a unity brought together;
So that to the end of days
The Flesh and the Soul
Which in a god have ripened –
That soul in a blood-kinship be bound.

This first man was created in Eden, a Sumerian word which means ‘flat terrain’. In the Epic of Gilgamesh , Eden is mentioned as the garden of the gods and is located somewhere in Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

That kinda answers that!

[Thomas123]

Let us not discount the Egyptian influences in the Judaic tradition where images of the God Amun Ra depict him as immaculately human. Then move forward to the Greek and Roman Gods and it becomes inevitable to conclude, that the perceptions of the ancients regarding Divine beings were confined within their own self-images.

If we were less sophisticated it would be easy to continue with this folly . Nowadays I feel that the human message of the Jesus preacher, (if untangled from this web of deceit) ,would be more sustaining and helpful for us all.

Jesus was not from a Divine source, neither were, M.L. King, Gandhi, J. Lennon, etc.

I have nothing against God Worship and I feel that a love for something external of ourselves, such as our beautiful planet and our shared existences could be both sustaining and unifying.
Jesus and J. Lennon agree...'All we need is Love!
Thanks!

[Thomas123]

I see the humanity of the Jesus guy in the context of my own life.
Tonight I was holding my mothers hand for a few hours as she slowly slips into the deep sleep of death

I was thinking of Peter in Gethsemane, where all I have to do is be in the moment with my friend and stay awake. I know my mother feels afraid and I know the Jesus guy was afraid too. That is a beautifully human moment in the NT ,that makes me consider that an occourence of something approximate to the narrative might have happened.

Then there is the fantastic 40 day fast in the desert.
In some way it is easy for me to imagine a human approximate of this actually occurring.
Temptation is as real as a bad itch. Hands up if you were ever prompted to do something ' mind- bogglingly', self -destructive or harmful. Please assure me that I am not alone here. Learning to overcome temptation is absolutely vital to having a normal life. Jesus appeared to be precociously talented, the world was his oyster, yet he chooses a missionary path. Buddha did the same.
In the film 'The Two Popes', the Argentinian guy leaves off marrying a beautiful girl, when he accidentally meets a confessor in a church. This is as human as the desert account.

It is strange that this incident in the desert is revealed to me as 'a human thing', when up to now I saw it as extremely dramatic and scripturally ott!

[Thomas123]

Luke 23
46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.

If this ever happened, which is unlikely, then what we see here is a human being pleading for refuge.
Jesus is free falling into God. This is a leap of faith that all of us will have to take, whether we realize it now or not. It is part of our nature.

[Thomas123]

TRANSPONDER Post 2

"But I will get into my Pet theory which is that Paul apparently did not see Jesus as God or even occupied by a god. It was (or this is the impression I was left with) the spirit of the messiah who (Paul proposed) came not to free Israel from Roman rule as Luke makes it clear he understood (24.21) but to overcome by obedience (to death) sin brought about by disobedience. Which makes me think that the spirit that came to undo that which it had done was the spirit that had done it - Adam, which would explain that puzzling epithet 'Son of man'."

Thomas123
This 'pet theory' ,probably deserved more consideration than was afforded to it. It suggests that Paul is struggling with his formulations. Considering that he made a complete mess of the brew, we should perhaps attempt to identify the culprit ingredients.

.....there's that Son of Man thing again!

[Eloi]

Can Jesus be considered as both human and divine?
In what manner, can this be done?
(...)
I would like to debate this point with others.
Thanks.

Do you mean like a Greek demigod?