Was Jesus's divinity determined by vote at the Council of Nicaea?

I have! Many times! On ST:TNG! :slight_smile:

Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerd! :wink:

The Gospels report that Jesus (when challenged by Thomas) replies that “does a ghost have a body”-or words to that effect. The Apostle’s Creed (adopted via the Council of Nicea), says that Jesus and the Father are of one substance…does this imply that they are (in fact) material beings? Or is God totally a spiritual being, without a physical body.

Sorry, I meant to say that IF Q was an actual document, THEN it is evidence of a fairly “low” christology.

Well, no. ANY scholarship has to be based on SOME assumptions. For instance, any attempt to discover the “historical Jesus” must assume that there WAS such a person. We can argue the evidence for and against that assumption, but you can’t PROVE that Jesus existed. Similarly, scholarship that takes Q as an assumption isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just relying on one additional assumption.

This is simply false for the earlier time period. The Ebionites, as I mentioned already, are a clear counterexample.

Yes, that’s true, but it only applies to the churches that were involved with Nicea. The bishops at the conference by no means represented ALL of christendom.

it was my understanding that god is not bound by time, bodily limits, or physics. when the angel told mary she would bear a son, god took on human form to live on earth. other than that, god could be where ever, what ever, when ever.

No. The Council of Nicaea adopted the Nicene Creed. The Apostle’s Creed is both older and younger than the Nicene Creed, with early variants cited (but not reproduced) as early as the 2d century, but the ideas which we typically identify with it being noted around the fifth century, and the actual form in which we now recognize it being established in the eighth century.

John 20:

Not quite as you described.

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I doubt that this is anywhere near as explicit as you have put forth. (I do not deny the possibility of such an interpretation of Paul, but such is an interpretation, not an explicit statement.)

1 Corinthians 15:12-23 pretty clearly implies that the resurection of Jesus is a special subset of the resurection of the dead. “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised” (v. 13). Indeed, Christ is the “the first fruits of those who have died” and will be raised (v.20). Verses 35-57 then go on to explore what this resurection of the dead is like. “With what kind of body do they come?” (35). The answer: “It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. . . . Thus it is written, 'The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam [i.e., Christ] became a life giving spirit. . . . Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust [i.e., Adam], we will also bear the image of the man of heaven [i.e., Christ]" (vv. 45, 47, 49).

Granted, Paul didn’t say “Jesus was raised with a spiritual body, not a physical one,” but I think it is pretty explicit nonetheless.

Again, how do you know? As far as I know, the best supposition is that Q is merely a sayings document - a sort of “The Wit and Wisdome of Jesus.” A collection of quotes wouldn’t be any evidence either way.

The difference, of course, is that we have lots of people saying, “This is what Jesus said and this is what he taught.” It’s pretty easy to go from the assumption that Jesus existed to what this historical Jesus taught and what his feelings were on a variety of subjects. We don’t know the same thing about Q. We can assume that Q existed and that it acted as a common source for Matthew and Luke. But we can’t know what form Q took, and we certainly can’t assume that Q provides evidence either way about Jesus’ divinity. To say that it would, would be to provide assumptions based on assumptions.

Yes, but we’re not talking about the earlier time period,we’re talking about the time period roundabout the Council of Nicea. By this time, the Ebionites were distinctly in the fringe when it came to Christianity and can’t really be used in evidence of the near universal acceptance of Jesus-as-Divine at that time.

No, but they did represent the vast majority.

Good point, and one worth thinking through. Q is a reasonable assumption, given the facts of what material we have – but it is an assumption.

Although every time someone trots out Q in one of these threads, I have this inane voice in the back of my head going “Bar Zebedee. James Bar Zebedee. When you’re moved by the Holy Spirit, your soul is shaken, not stirred!” :smiley:

Um, yes and no. The Ebionites appear to have been very much a fringe group after 100 AD or so. And the point to the Council of Nicaea is that those invited were supposed to be the leaders of the overwhelming majority of Christians.

Certainly, either of us can trot out a small denomination that believes almost anything theological that someone cares to advance as a proposition. But the fact we can do so does not change the principles at least theoretically adhered to by the vast majority of Christians.

As I see it, bottom line for Nicaea is that orthodox Christianity, comprising 98%+ of Christians, held that Jesus was in some way divine, and the council was called to arrive at a consensus on how, to prevent internecine strife between Christians which disturbed the public order. Constantine was not so much interested in getting some specific definition he favored approved, as he was in getting a consensus definition, agreed to by the bishops, approved so that Christians would not be fighting Christians in the public streets, with accompanying disruption of civic life.

And hence he tried to get the entire Christian community to come together. That there were some beyond his authority who refused to come, and some who were not episcopally governed, was true – but they were not in any way major or influential groups.

Well, it’s partly an argument from silence: what Jesus DOESN’T say about himself. But not entirely. Just to pull one example, more or less at random:

On the one hand, Jesus is identifying himself as the Son of Man, which indicates a pretty exalted status. OTOH, the second quote clearly places a distinction between the SOM and the Holy Spirit.

BTW here’s Q, as reconstructed by Burton Mack.
The difference, of course, is that we have lots of people saying, “This is what Jesus said and this is what he taught.” It’s pretty easy to go from the assumption that Jesus existed to what this historical Jesus taught and what his feelings were on a variety of subjects. We don’t know the same thing about Q. We can assume that Q existed and that it acted as a common source for Matthew and Luke. But we can’t know what form Q took, and we certainly can’t assume that Q provides evidence either way about Jesus’ divinity. To say that it would, would be to provide assumptions based on assumptions.
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But all scholarship is “assumptions based on assumptions”. To even talk about the NT, you need to preface something like, “IF Jesus existed and IF the gospels represent (some of) his words (somewhat) accurately and IF those documents were transmitted reasonably accurately and translated reasonably accurately…”

You can’t get away from assumptions. They’re everywhere, often unacknowleged. At least Q scholars acknowlege their assumptions (some of the time…)

gobear’s statement that I objected to appeared to be a blanket statement about all early christians, not about some particular group at some particular time.