Duvduv

aa5874 has argued that no description of Jesus can constitute a human even in the gospel stories, and that no early believer or writer could have possibly considered Jesus human since his father was the Holy Spirit. And this is despite the fact that characters in the stories related to him as if he were physically human.
Has there ever been a debate in standard Christianity over whether the gospel Jesus could or could not be technically physically human? Obviously I am not referring to the docetic alternative or to debates over his various internal natures.

aa5874

Please remove my name from what you have stated. You do not represent my position on Jesus.

You MUST state your OWN position and allow me to state mine.

Why are you so reluctant to state your OWN views?

I detest when people mis-represent my position.

Duvduv

There is something very confusing. You have said several times that Justin Martyr did not believe in a human Jesus but a ghost because the fertilizing power was not a human father. Remember? We exchanged about it. You said the same thing about others. I asked you a few times why a birth from a woman's womb does not constite a human birth regardless of the source of fertilization of the embryo.

aa5874

No. It is NOT confusing.

When you start a thread you should PRESENT your position.

Please STATE your OWN position on the Human Jesus so that you won't get confused.

Soon you may be be mis-representing my position on other discussion boards.

My position on the Human Jesus is NOT cast in stone and I am under NO obligation to have the same position, change my position or to notify anyone of my position. I have authorised no-one to represent me.

When I start a thread I present My position. I expect you to do the same.

ApostateAbe

There has been all manner of debates about the nature of Jesus, such debates have lasted throughout the millennia, and they call it "christology." The Nicene Crede established the mainstream doctrine that Jesus was both fully God and fully man, but of course there has been on the theological debate table almost anything you can possibly imagine about the true nature of Jesus. If not debates about "his various internal natures," then what do you mean?

Toto

Could you clarify this? The "docetic alternative" and debates over his "internal natures" are precisely the debates that Christians have had over whether Jesus was or could be physically human. What else is there? Why should it be obvious?

aa5874 seems to argue that the Jesus of the gospels was not a regular human being, because he was the product of a miraculous birth, performed miracles, and rose from the dead, and in fact, this is the position of "standard Christianity." Christians reject the idea that Jesus was a mere human. The Christology controversies are over the precise nature of his divine substance. To claim that Jesus was only a human would be rank heresy.

Islam, on the other hand, treats Jesus as a prophet and not as a god, a fully human being in spite of his divine birth from a virgin. The Islamic view of Jesus is probably based on that of dissident Christian factions that lost out in the ideological struggles of the 4th and 5th centuries.

The complication is that there are a lot of Unitarians and secularized Christians who prefer to see Jesus as a great man, and downplay or just ignore his supernatural aspects. These people still consider themselves Christians.

Duvduv

The point I was making is regarding the physical body of the person, not his soul according to whether he was considered God and man etc.
A docetic nature as I understand it meant that he wasn't born as a physical body but just appeared, which is reflected in a gospel without a nativity story.
I understood aa7854 to disagree that Jesus had a physical body despite having been born conventionally to Mary. I kept making the point that despite fertilization by the Holy Spirit he was still understood to have a regular physical body because he was born in the regular human fashion.

Duvduv

I am sorry but I don't understand.
I was trying to clarify whether Christians ever believed it was possible for Jesus to have been born conventionally yet still not have a physical body, and whether that was what you were suggesting Justin and others believed.

Doug Shaver

I don't quite understand that question. If Jesus of Nazareth actually existed, then he was an ordinary human being, period. Whatever constitutes humanity for all the rest of us constituted him also.

The gospel authors portrayed him as a human being, but one who was unique in certain respects that were important to them for theological or other religious reasons. Whether the authors thought they were describing a man of actual history or a fictional character is, at least in this forum, up for debate. In either case, they were writing about a human Jesus -- a special human, to be sure, but a human nonetheless.

Trying to make sense of aa's thinking is a waste of time.

Toto

Docetists believed that Jesus only appeared to be a human, but was actually something like ectoplasm.

If Jesus was "born of a woman" he was considered to be human.