Did Jesus walk on Earth as God or was Jesus according to Burton L Mack only a man who was a wandering sage?

Answer 1

Jesus is God who came down from heaven and was born as a human baby to Mary at Bethlehem. While on earth He was still fully God and He was fully man, but He lived His life on earth as a man and did His miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is called the God/Man. If you believe that Jesus was just a wandering sage and not God you will never make it to heaven.

Answer 2

Burton L. Mack is John Wesley Professor emeritus in Early Christianity at the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California. He is primarily a scholar of Christian origins, approaching it from the angle of social group formation. Mack's approach is sceptical, and he sees the gospels more as charter documents of the early Christian movement than as reliable accounts of the life of Jesus.

The gospel texts are understood by Mack as myths - not in the sense of lies or innocently fanciful tales but in the sense of narratives that reflect and advance specific ways of representing the world and, along with it, one's place in it. For example, his study of the Gospel of Mark concludes that one would be mistaken to read it as a historical narrative that can be judged accurate or not; instead, the text comprises a myth of origins conducive to the interests and needs of the writer and his community.

Mack does not regard himself as a historical Jesus scholar, although he believes Jesus was likely to have been a wandering sage. Nevertheless, his view of early Christianity and of gospel formation is generally consistent with Jesus as Son of God.