Jesus: Why I believe He was a failure.

I think in Christian theology Jesus Christ is the "Son of God" in the sense that he is a seperate personhood of God from the Father (YHWH) and that the title "Son" is the closest human relationship which expresses his relation to the father.However his lineage is still supposed to hold because the "Son of God", the second personhood of the triumvirate Godhead has two natures: one divine, one human. Its divine nature is the fully divine "Son" who resides in eternity with the Father. Its human nature is the fully human Jesus, a Nazarene Jew who is the descendant of the earlier King David.

Well, actually, it is more complicated than that.
In Christian theology God is one being with three personhoods, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The personhood known as the Son has two natures:
(a) The divine nature, the Son who resides in eternity with the father
(b) The fully human Jesus of Nazereth, who has a temporal existence.So that's:
One being.
Three persons.
One of the persons has two natures.Since Jesus is fully human he may claim descent from David through Joseph.This view is Chalcedonian Christianity and includes virtually all modern western churches.I should also say that the two natures of Jesus have two separate wills. Which is how Jesus could suffer, even though he was the fully divine "Son".

I'll take the view of most Chalcedonian churches:Jesus was, under Jewish law, considered the "Son of Joseph". The reasons for this are:
(a)He was a male child (fully human)
(b)He was not the child of another man.So in the Jewish view of inheritance at the time Jesus would be of "the line of David". Of course he was not a blood relative of Joseph, but that was not what was required. He essentially fulfilled all the requirements, which are not of European dynastic form.Secondly, the Roman Catholic Church and other churches (such as the other Patriarchies in communion with the Pope) argue that Mary herself was a descendant of David. Two passages in Romans and 2 Timothy suggest this. Jesus is described as being "made to him (God) of the seed of David". Which implies Mary was related to David, traditionally through Nathan the son of David.
However this mostly relies on tradition which is not a valid theological source for other churches so I'll leave it.

I think this is too modern a view. There was no such thing as adoption as we know it in Jewish societies back then. Rather he simply fulfilled certain Jewish requirements. Perhaps Foster child is closer, but I do not know. In any case Jesus is described as physically being of the seed of David, even in a non legal sense.Some take this to be a reference to Mary being a descendant of David, although you can argue that Jesus is not even really Mary's child. I think this comes from the phrase the son of God, which a lot of Christians seem to think means he was, in some way, the son of God and Mary or something.
Rather Mary was simply the womb (I'm aware how misogynistic that sounds) which carried the incarnation of an aspect of God. Well Jesus isn't the son of God, he is God. Or rather he is the physical/temporal aspect of one personhood of God. He's not God's son or something. Unfortunately this personhood has the name "Son", another word is λγος or logos. Son is used because it provides a human view of the relationship between this logos personhood of God with the personhood known as YHWH or the Father.

This is a minority view and hence I did not adopt it. I'd prefer to stick to the view of the vast majority of Christians and keep Jesus and YHWH as the same being. You can't just claim your own view as fact, otherwise I might as well claim my own view that Jesus was just some guy as fact.Also you didn't complete your quote from John 1:1
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Which strongly suggests that Jesus and God are the same being.

Hey Brian, Completely true. As a sociological aside, isn't it bizarre that Jewishness was inherited through the mother and still is, but kingship was inherited through the father. Maybe there is something I do not understand, but it seems an odd mix to me. No disagreement. I mentioned it because the Catholic church uses tradition as a valid source of theology. If enough Catholics think something is true, then it is true, since God would not allow a falsehood into his true church. I don't get it at all, but there you go. Definitely correct, I'm not sure what the response of most churches is to this.The only thing is that Romans 1:3 says that Jesus is of the flesh of David:
"who was made to him of the seed of David, according to the flesh"So Jesus was physically of David and materially carried his blood in some manner. I must admit I don't get it, all I can give is the common reasoning.

Hey Buz*,Debates on the nature of Christ and his exact relationship to God are not easy. It absolutely dominated the early Roman period of the religion and was only settled after several councils over the span of hundreds of years.The view you take is not the one that won out in the end. I would take your statements to mean you are not Chalcedonian and hence not truly Protestant or Catholic. The view that the Father was greater than the Son is known as heteroousia, although you may know it by the name of the historical group associated with it. Namely Arianism. Anyway heteroousia is not a view held by the majority of churches.*any Dubliner would love that sentence

Hey Peg,My response is pretty much the same as my response to Buz. Your view is entirely non-trinitarian, so it's even further from the modern standard than Buz. Well you must understand that I am an atheist. I view this in a similar light to the two origin stories of Aphrodite.
Was she really created from the bollocks of Ouranos or was she a daughter of Zeus?
All I would say is that in standard greek mythology she was made from testicular violence on the person of Ouranos and the other view was minor.Similar in most forms of Christianity, Christ is:
1. Of the same being as the father and the holy spirit (Trinitarianism)
2. Same essence (equal with) the Father (Homoousia)
3. That the divine (Logos) and human (Jesus) aspects were one individual (Hypostasis)
4. However that the human and devine aspects are distinct (Dyophysite)
5. And have separate wills (Chalcedonian)