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The Bible says . . .
Jesus was not divine
Although the Church proclaims that Jesus and God are, and have always been, co-equal personalities (along with the Holy Spirit) in the Trinity, there are many passages in the New Testament that indicate Jesus was not God, was inferior to God, and in fact was just a human being. Here are some of them:
Jesus admits: "The father is greater than I." (John 14:28)
"No one has ever seen God." (John 1:18) Yet crowds of people saw Jesus.
Jesus asks, "Why do you call me good? Only God is good." (Mark 10:18) Also in Matthew 19:17; Luke 18:19.
"Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ." (1 Corinthians 11:3)
Jesus was not in existence at the beginning, but was created by God at a specific point in time: "Thou art my son; today I have begotten thee." (Acts 13:33)
Peter refers to Jesus the Nazarene as a "man" through whom God performed many wonders. (Acts 2:22) The Greek word for "man" in this verse is andra, which refers to a human man - specifically, "a male person of full age and stature." (William D. Mounce, The Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament)
"Among those born of women, there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist." (Matthew 11:11) But Jesus himself was born of the woman Mary. If he were truly divine, he would himself be greater than John the Baptist. Therefore, Jesus must not be divine. Also see Luke 7:28.
Jesus botched the healing of a blind man, and had to do it over again. If he were truly divine, he would have gotten it right the first time.
"And some people brought to him a blind man, and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the village; and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands upon him, he asked him, 'Do you see anything?' and he looked up and said, 'I see men; but they look like trees walking.' Then again he laid his hands upon his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and saw everything clearly." (Mark 8:22-25)
The Bible says . . .
Jesus was a sinner
Jesus violated at least two of the Ten Commandments as well as several other requirements of the Old Testament Law. This means that he was a sinner, and could not possibly have fulfilled the requirement of being the perfectly innocent sacrificial lamb required by Paul's theology. Here are some examples of the sins of Jesus:
"Honor your father and your mother." (Exodus 20:12)
BUT: Jesus spoke very harshly to his mother in John 2:4 ("Woman, what do I have to do with you?") He effectively disowned her in public in Matthew 12:46-50, preferring his followers over her. And when the woman in Luke proclaims Mary's womb as "blessed" for having given birth to Jesus, he objects and responds, "On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it." (Luke 11:28) On all these counts, Jesus dishonored his mother, in violation of the fifth commandment, and thus committed a sin.
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house . . . or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's." (Exodus 20:17)
BUT: Jesus commanded his disciples, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me." (Matthew 21:2) Matthew's account does not tell us that they asked anyone for permission to take the donkey and the colt, or if they did ask, what the response was. In any case, at least the tenth commandment was violated, because Jesus coveted another person's donkey. If he had them taken without permission, then he also violated the eighth commandment against stealing. Jesus's behavior in Luke's version is no better. In that gospel the animal is a colt, but the owner confronts the disciples, asking "Why are you untying the colt?" And the disciples respond, "The Lord has need of it." (Luke 19:33-34) And they take it anyway. No permission is given by the colt's owner.
"If anyone sins in that he hears a public adjuration to testify and though he is a witness, whether he has seen or come to know the matter, yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity." (Leviticus 5:1)
In other words, anyone summoned to testify in a public proceeding is obligated to tell what he knows.
BUT: Jesus, before the Sanhedrin and before Pilate, refused to testify: "Then Pilate said to him, 'Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?' And he did not answer him with regard to even a single charge, so that the governor was quite amazed." (Matthew 27:13-14) Thus, Jesus committed another sin by refusing to testify.
"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." (Deuteronomy 6:5)
BUT: On the cross, Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you deserted me?" (Mark 15:34) At that moment, Jesus was definitely not expressing love for God, but frustration and despair. Certainly his whole heart, and soul, and might were not devoted to the love of God at that moment. Thus Jesus violated the commandment expressed in Deuteronomy 6:5, showing again that he was a sinner.
And if Jesus was not a sinner, why did he get baptized by John the Baptist? (Mark 1:9) John was preaching a "baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." (Mark 1:4) The only reason to be baptized is to wash away sinfulness.
The Bible says . . .
Jesus's message was only for Israel
"I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Matthew 15:24)
Jesus told his disciples: "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Matthew 10:5-6)
The greatest commandment is addressed only to Israel: "Which commandment is the first of all? Jesus answered, 'The first is Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'" (Mark 12:28-30)
When a Greek woman begged Jesus to expel the demons from her daughter, Jesus replied, "Let the children first be fed [i.e., the children of Israel], for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." (Mark 7:27)
The Bible says . . .
Slaves should obey their masters
"Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as to Christ." (Ephesians 6:5)
"Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters." (Collossians 3:22)
"Bid slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect." (Titus 2:9)
"Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be defamed." (1 Timothy 6:1)
The Bible says . . .
Jesus's own disciples didn't believe he rose from the dead.
If Jesus really taught that he would rise from the dead after three days, you'd think his disciples would have been overjoyed to see him alive after the crucifixion. But we find just the opposite in the Bible. The disciples themselves didn't believe it!
When the women returned from the tomb and told the disciples that Jesus had risen, "these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them." (Luke 24:11)
The two followers who had seen the post-resurrection Jesus "went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them." (Mark 16:13)
"For as yet they [the disciples] did not know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead." (John 20:9)
When Thomas was told of Jesus's appearance to the other ten, he replied, "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe." (John 20:25)
"And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted." (Matthew 28:17)
And when Jesus reportedly appeared to the eleven disciples, "he upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen." (Mark 16:14)
The Bible says . . .
Jesus's knowledge of the Bible was imperfect.
In Mark 2:26 Jesus tries to justify the harvesting of grain on the sabbath by referring to a story in which David ate the holy bread "when Abiathar was high priest." But the priest at that time was Ahimelech, not Abiathar, as we can read in 1 Samuel 21:1-6.
Also in Mark 2:26, Jesus says that David gave the holy bread "to those who were with him." But David's men were not with him when he asked the priest to give him the bread. The priest even asked David, "Why are you alone, and no one with you?" (1 Samuel 21:1)
In Luke 11:50-51, Jesus warns that the "blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah." However, Abel (the son of Adam and Eve) was not a prophet. There would not even have been anyone on earth for him to prophesy to, other than Adam, Eve, and his brother Cain.
In Matthew 23:35, which parallels Luke 11:50-51, Jesus refers to "the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar." But the Zechariah who was murdered in 2 Chronicles 24:21 was not the son of Barachiah, but the son of Jehoiada, as we are told in the preceding verse, 2 Chronicles 24:20. Zechariah the son of Barachiah was not murdered, but died a natural death, according to early traditions. (See The Interpreter's Bible, vol.7, p.540.)
