The infamous death and resurrection of Jesus Christ caused an outbreak of believers spreading outwards from Judea. However, Christianity as we know it did not merely appear out of thin air. With the arrival and death of Jesus came diversity in opinions of who he was and what he meant to the word. Different world religions and sects each developed their own views on Jesus along with his immediate and soon to be Christian followers as an attempt to unearth the mystery of divine power in the world.
First, the Jewish opinion of Christ began to take form. However, the lack of complete unification of Judaism allowed for sects to have slightly differing opinions of Christ. The contemporary Jews of the time saw Jesus as both a teacher and a prophet. However, to them, Jesus was only human and did not posses any form of divine power. The lack of belief in Jesus’ divinity mainly resides in the Jewish belief that while there is only one God
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This group believed that they had acquired a secret religious knowledge from personal insight and that they knew who Jesus truly was. Some believed that they received this knowledge directly from Jesus who visited them spiritually and others believed that they received the knowledge from his followers. Gnostic groups essentially rivaled one another, but they not share all views of Orthodox Christians. One Gnostic writer who drew popularity second century was Valentinus. In his accounts of Jesus, Valentinus shows Jesus’ divinity through the example of his digestive system. He states that Jesus does not digest food in the same way that we do and that he does not defecate (Epistle to Agatopous (VFrE)). Thus, Jesus has a power over the material world, which makes him not human, but divine. This divinity Valentine states that Jesus has leads to his belief that during his crucifixion he only suffered in appearance because the divine cannot feel physical