Is Jesus Christ a man, or is he God?,Jesus Christ is most definitely God. He created Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, in his image. He is the Creator of the universe. The Bible says, "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made" (John 1:3). This includes all the stars, all the original animals and plants, and even the angels (Colossians 1:15-17).

It is important not be confused. God did not create Jesus. Jesus is God, and he has always existed.

Jesus proved that he is God by doing many things that only God could do. These are called miracles. He made dead people alive. He walked across a great lake. He made blind eyes see perfectly again. He healed deadly diseases with a word.

The exciting truth is that Jesus is now also a man, and will remain so for all eternity. He humbled himself to become like one of his own creations. He chose to become a man to help us in an extremely important way. This amazing event happened about 2-thousand years ago. The results have changed the world forever.


The part of God that is called the Holy Spirit created God's human body inside of a woman named Mary (Matthew 1:20). God went into this human body that grew inside of Mary. The baby was born and grew into a man.
 

At various times in the past, Jesus had appeared to people in human form. One example is when he appeared to Abraham just before the judgment of the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. But now, for the first time in history, God did not simply appear as man, he became fully human. Yet, he is still God. He is both God and man.

One huge difference between this man and every other man and woman, or boy and girl, is that Jesus was (and still is) sinless. We humans are full of sin. We sin every day. Jesus never did anything wrong, not even once. No matter what temptations came to him, he refused to sin. He has always remained pure and perfect.

Isn't it amazing to think about?! Our Creator walked among us. Like us, our Almighty God smelled the flowers and touched the animals that he had created. He loved boys and girls.


As a man, God experienced the same temptations that we feel (Hebrews 2:18). He suffered the same kind of physical pains that we suffer with. He also experienced emotional pain. He even wept about the city of Jerusalem (John 11:35). He was ignored, unappreciated, unloved, misunderstood, and even despised -- even though he did nothing wrong, and always loved everyone (1 Peter 2:23). Not only is Jesus Christ the greatest man that ever lived; he is our Creator. He deserved all glory and honor!

I am sure that you have heard what people did to him. It was horribly painful and terribly unjust.
 

He had the power to stop their torture and taunting at any time. His power is awesome beyond anything we can understand. Yet, he did not defend himself. He let himself be like a perfect, innocent little lamb that hurt no one, and was sacrificed for the sins of the people.

He did this for us, because he loves us. Only he could pay the price for our sins. Only he could save us from the punishment we deserve. He suffered for us (1 Peter 2:21; 3:18; 4:1).

Today, he lives in Heaven and works to help us (Romans 8:34). The Bible tells us that one day he will return to earth to become the rightful king of the entire world. That will be a most wonderful time! Finally, we will have a leader that is good and wise in every way. The earth will be filled with God's glory and justice. Life on this planet will become so much better. Even the dangerous animals will become harmless (the wolf will lie down with the lamb) (Isaiah 11:6).

Is Jesus Christ God or man? The amazing answer is BOTH; he is God and man.


Why did God become a man?

God did this wonderful thing for various reasons, including:

1. To fulfill the prophecies of God's Word
2. To satisfy the law, paying for all who are guilty of sin (Isa. 53; Heb. 9:12,15). By his sacrifice, he purchased the right to give us salvation.
3. To show us an example of how to live, and to tell us important stories face-to-face.



Also, watch God's Story: From Creation to Eternity




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There are many other fascinating things to learn about God!

*

If Jesus is God, how could he die? If Jesus died on the cross, then how can he be alive today? Answer...
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Learn about why God made a human body for himself and came to earth. Watch the fascinating story of his life on earth. [exciting on-line video: The Hope]
*

What does the name "Jesus" mean? Answer...
*

What does the name "Christ" mean? Answer...
*

Learn interesting facts about the birth of Jesus Christ
*

About Christ's resurrection from the dead
*

Frequently asked questions about Jesus Christ


Further information for teachers and parents...

* Is Jesus Christ God? Answer...
* How and why did God greatly humble himself? Answer...
* God (in our WebBible Encyclopedia)
* Incarnation (in our WebBible Encyclopedia)
* Trinity (in our WebBible Encyclopedia)
* Has science disproved the miracles associated with Jesus Christ? Answer...
* Was Jesus Christ only a legend? Answer...
* Isn't the virgin birth of Jesus Christ mythological and scientifically impossible? Answer...
* The Law - its purpose (using the Law in evangelism)
* Are you good enough to go to Heaven? Answer...
* Redemption (in our WebBible Encyclopedia)
* Does God feel our pain? Answer...

Experts question documentary’s claims, The Academy Award-winning director behind “Titanic” and “The Terminator” is attempting to challenge fundamental tenets of Christianity by suggesting that Jesus may have been a father whose body was buried far from the Jerusalem tomb where believers say he rose from the dead.

In a documentary set to air Sunday, Hollywood filmmaker James Cameron and his team contend they’ve produced new evidence that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and fathered a son named Judah.

Biblical experts and archaeologists who are familiar with the central evidence instantly discounted the claim, which Discovery Channel has touted as possibly “the greatest archaeological find in history,” as an ill-informed, recycled publicity grab.

The chances that the findings in “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” are real “are more than remote,” Israel Museum curator David Mevorah said. “They are closer to fantasy.”

If proved true, the findings would undercut Christian beliefs that Jesus never had children and that he rose from the dead. The documentary also contradicts long-held beliefs by Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians that Jesus had lain in a tomb around which Christians built the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City of Jerusalem.

“It doesn’t get bigger than this,” Cameron said before the basic findings were presented Monday at a New York news conference. “We’ve done our homework; we’ve made the case, and now it’s time for the debate to begin.”

The Discovery Channel documentary and an accompanying book center on a 2,000-year-old limestone tomb that was discovered more than a quarter-century ago during a construction project in a residential Jerusalem neighborhood between the Old City and Bethlehem.

When the tomb was uncovered in 1980, specialists were called. The man who led the effort was Amos Kloner, an archaeologist from Bar Ilan University, who meticulously documented the findings.

The tomb contained 10 limestone burial boxes and scattered bones. Among the inscriptions found on the ancient caskets: Jesus, son of Joseph; Mary; and Judah, son of Jesus.

Five of the burial boxes, known as ossuaries, had names that could be linked to the Bible, including versions of Joseph and Matthew.

Then and now, Kloner took no note of the names, saying they were common among residents of the area at the time.

But Discovery hired a statistician who concluded that the chances that this was the tomb of Jesus and his family were 600 to 1.

Mevorah called the statistical analysis “a good trick.” While the collection of names might seem compelling, Mevorah said the names were popular at the time and that another ossuary with the inscription “Jesus, son of Joseph” is on display in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., as part of a traveling exhibition of early Christian artifacts.

“Statistics can bring empires down or build them up,” he said. “But I wouldn’t build a theory of the most important person of the first century on statistics.”

The documentary used DNA testing on samples taken from the ossuary for Jesus and a second for Mary to show that the two sets of bones weren’t related, evidence the television researchers said indicated that the two probably were married.

The documentary suggests that the ossuary labeled Judah, son of Jesus, may have carried the bones of their son, though the researchers make no mention of doing DNA testing on that box.

After watching a review copy of the documentary, Kloner criticized it as little more than a publicity stunt.

“The claim that the burial site has been found is not based on any new idea. It is only an attempt to sell,” Kloner said. “It’s a waste of money.”

No matter what the truth may be, the documentary is certain to fuel a surge in populist religious skepticism best exemplified by the wildly successful novel and film “The Da Vinci Code.” The Dan Brown mystery centered on theories that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and that she was pregnant when he was crucified.

The Departed’ Wins Best Picture, Scorsese Best Director,Twenty-six years and seven snubs after his first Oscar nomination, for “Raging Bull,” Martin Scorsese finally felt the warm embrace of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Sunday as he was named best director and his murderous mob thriller “The Departed” was named the best picture of 2006.

“Could you double-check the envelope?” Mr. Scorsese quipped after silencing a raucous standing ovation of whistling, whooping academy members.

“I’m so moved,” he said, accepting the directing prize. “So many people over the years have been wishing this for me. Strangers — I go into doctors’ offices, elevators, I go for an X-ray — they say, ‘You should win one.’ ”

Forest Whitaker won best actor for his performance as the cunning, seductive and savage Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland.”

“Receiving this honor tells me that it’s possible,” Mr. Whitaker said. “It is possible, for a kid from East Texas, raised in South Central L.A., and Carson, who believes in dreams, who believes them in his heart, to touch them and have them happen.”

Helen Mirren took best actress for her performance as a traditional monarch in a modern world in “The Queen.”

“For 50 years or more, Elizabeth Windsor has maintained her dignity, her sense of duty and her hairstyle,” Ms. Mirren said. “I salute her courage and her consistency, and I thank her, for if it wasn’t for her, I most certainly would not be here.”

Graham King, the only of three credited producers permitted to accept the best-picture award for “The Departed,” said, “To be standing here where Martin Scorsese won his Oscar is such a joy.” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” Guillermo Del Toro’s magical-realist fantasy set in 1944 Fascist Spain, received Oscars for cinematography, art direction and makeup at the 79th Academy Awards ceremony, but fell short of its ultimate prize, best foreign-language film, which went to “The Lives of Others,” from Germany.

Jennifer Hudson, the “American Idol” reject-turned-star of “Dreamgirls,” was named best supporting actress, giving two of the four acting awards to African-Americans. And Alan Arkin, the cranky, heroin-snorting grandfather in the bittersweet family comedy “Little Miss Sunshine,” won best supporting actor.

“Little Miss Sunshine” also won for its original screenplay by Michael Arndt, a former assistant to Matthew Broderick who had to wait seven years for his script to be produced. “When I was a kid my family drove 500 miles in a van with a broken clutch,” he said, explaining the source of his inspiration. “It ended up being one of the funnest things we did together.”

On a night in which several top awards came as no surprise, “An Inconvenient Truth,” the documentary featuring Al Gore on global warming, won best documentary feature.

“I made this movie for my children,” said the director, Davis Guggenheim, his arm on Mr. Gore’s shoulder. “We were moved to act by this man.”

Mr. Gore took his moment in the worldwide spotlight to underline the film’s message. “My fellow Americans, people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis,” he said, adding that the “will to act” was a renewable resource. “Let’s renew it,” he said.

That film also won best original song, for “I Need to Wake Up,” by Melissa Etheridge, upsetting “Dreamgirls,” which had three songs in contention. Holding her Oscar aloft backstage, Ms. Etheridge quipped that it would be “the only naked man who will ever be in my bedroom.”

In a twist, “The Lives of Others,” which examined the Orwellian police state that was East Germany, won in something of an upset. The German director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, thanked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California “for teaching me that the words ‘I can’t’ should be stricken from my vocabulary.”

The awards for Mr. Del Toro’s movie came on a night in which his and two other films by Mexican directors were up for a total of 16 honors. One of them, “Babel,” won for its original score by Gustavo Santaolalla, who also won last year for “Brokeback Mountain.”

“Happy Feet” was named the year’s best animated feature.

Accepting for best supporting actor, Mr. Arkin said that “Little Miss Sunshine” was about “innocence, growth and connection.” His voice cracking, he praised his fellow actors, saying that acting was a “team sport.” He added, “I can’t work at all unless I feel the spirit of unity around me.”

William Monahan won best adapted screenplay for “The Departed,” his transplantation of the movie “Infernal Affairs” from Hong Kong to South Boston.

An Oscar also went to Thelma Schoonmaker, the longtime editor to Mr. Scorsese. She saluted Mr. Scorsese for being “tumultuous, passionate, funny” as a collaborator. “It’s like being in the best film school in the world,” she said.

“Dreamgirls,” nominated for eight awards, the most of any film, also won for sound mixing. But Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto,” whose three nominations were caught up in the tempest caused by the director’s drunken, anti-Semitic rant last summer, was shut out.

Ellen DeGeneres made her first appearance as the host of the movie industry’s annual celebration of itself, on a night expected to have its share of pregnant moments. Three filmmaking titans — Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola — presentedthe award for best director.

Ms. DeGeneres said it had been a lifelong dream of hers to be host for the Oscars, rather than to win one. “Let that be a lesson to you kids out there: Aim lower,” she said, sounding a theme for the evening’s opening, which was designed to honor the many nominees, 177 in all, rather than focusing on the winners.

Ms. DeGeneres repeatedly ventured into the audience, at one point getting Mr. Spielberg to take a picture of her with Clint Eastwood, “for MySpace.”

And in a choice full of irony for industry insiders, Tom Cruise, who was thrown off the Paramount lot last summer by Viacom’s chairman, Sumner M. Redstone, gave the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Sherry Lansing, the former Paramount chairwoman who retired during a shake-up by Mr. Redstone two years earlier.

Backstage, Ms. Lansing said she had not known that Mr. Cruise was going to give her the award. “I saw him at an Oscar party a few days before, and he was sort of cold to me,” she said. Onstage, she said, he had whispered in her ear: “This is an honor. I really wanted to do this, you know how much I love you.” Ms. Lansing said she believed Mr. Cruise, who had a rough year before taking over management of United Artists, would be back to pick up an Oscar for directing or producing within five years.

Ennio Morricone, the Italian composer, received an honorary Oscar from Mr. Eastwood, who starred in the spaghetti westerns for which Mr. Morricone provided the unmistakable music.

The program began with a bouncy montage, directed by Errol Morris, of interview snippets with nominees reciting, among other things, the number of times they had come close to winning an Oscar. “Zilch,” said Peter O’Toole, of the number of times he had won.

Will Ferrell and Jack Black, leading members of Hollywood’s comedy rat pack, did a song-and-dance number bemoaning the paucity of comedic talent among the Oscar nominees. “I guess you don’t like laughter,” Mr. Ferrell sang. “A comedian at the Oscars is the saddest, bitterest, alcoholic clown.”

John C. Reilly, a past Oscar nominee, then stood up in the audience to remind them — in song — that he had been in both “Boogie and Talladega Nights.” All three then crooned that they hoped to go home with Helen Mirren, a best-actress nominee, who is in her 60s.

Breaking with tradition, the show’s producer, Laura Ziskin, best known for the “Spider-Man” franchise, rejiggered the lineup of awards to leave the marquee categories — best actor, actress, director and picture — for the end of the night. The first half of the show was front-loaded with technical and craft categories: art direction, makeup, sound editing and mixing, costume design and visual effects.

“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” won for visual effects; “Letters From Iwo Jima” took sound editing; “Marie Antoinette” picked up costume design.

The director Ari Sandel won best live-action short film for “West Bank Story,” a spoof on “West Side Story” with feuding Palestinian and Israeli falafel stands. “This is a movie about peace and about hope,” Mr. Sandel said. “To get this award shows that there are so many out there who also support that notion.”

The award for animated short went to “The Danish Poet,” written and directed by Torill Kove.

Mr. Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio, a nominee for best actor (“Blood Diamond”), announced in the middle of the telecast that the program had offset its carbon emissions by buying energy credits. “This show has officially gone green,” Mr. DiCaprio said.

The Oscars adopted other conservation measures this year, such as using recycled paper for the Oscar ballots. “We have a long way to go, but all of us, in our lives, can do something to make a difference,” Mr. Gore said.

But Mr. Gore did not throw his hat in the ring, as the producers of his film, among others in Hollywood, had hoped he might. Asked if he had a major announcement to make, Mr. Gore said: “With a billion people watching, it’s as good a time as any. So my fellow Americans, I’m going to take this opportunity, here and now, to formally announce” — and the Oscars orchestra, right on cue, drowned him out as if he had droned on a second too long.

The Academy Awards capped a season in which the conventional wisdom has often been wrong, and actual wisdom has been in short supply. The big question before the nominations was how many Oscars “Dreamgirls” might win, and what film could compete with it for best picture. The only question after the nominations was, What happened to “Dreamgirls”?

Many theories were advanced, including misguided marketing and an abundance of hype, but the film’s director, Bill Condon, cut to the chase: “Maybe the Academy saw five films they liked better.” Whatever the reason, the film’s elimination left the race wide open to an array of films that took very different routes to the nomination.

“The Departed” rode a wave of box-office success and a plan to keep Oscar hype on the down-low, partly because many in the industry felt it was time to recognize the director Martin Scorsese’s lifetime of excellence. “Little Miss Sunshine,” a new take on the family road-trip movie, which won four Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday, was a film that no one in Hollywood seemed to want to make, but it connected with audiences to the tune of more than $94 million in worldwide box-office receipts. “Babel,” by contrast, left United States audiences cold while doing good business abroad, but connected with critics and was rewarded for a global, ambitious story by winning best dramatic feature at the Golden Globes.

“The Queen,” a small movie that managed to do everything right, managed to ride one of the year’s more remarkable performances — Ms. Mirren as a traditional monarch in a very modern world — to broad critical recognition. And after “Flags of Our Fathers,” another would-be Oscar hopeful, met with indifference, Mr. Eastwood and his studio, Warner Brothers, decided to release the film’s twin, “Letters From Iwo Jima,” before year’s end — and were rewarded with a best-picture nomination.

This appeared to be the most ethnically and linguistically diverse batch of film nominees yet, appropriate enough given that Hollywood’s foreign revenues now eclipse the domestic take by a significant margin. The Oscar slate included several films shot largely in languages other than English, most notably Mr. Eastwood’s “Letters From Iwo Jima,” in Japanese, and Mr. Gibson’s “Apocalypto,” in Maya dialects.

“Babel,” from the Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, spanned three continents and five languages — Japanese, Berber, Spanish, English and sign — and two of its actresses, Rinko Kikuchi of Japan and Adriana Barraza of Mexico, received nominations. (Three films by Mexican directors were up for a total of 16 honors.)

Immigrants who wire money get help from the Fed,Directo a Mexico lets customers without Social Security numbers wire money at little cost. Even as the federal government is starting to crack down on companies that hire illegal immigrants, it's been helping those same workers send money home, cheap.

Dubbed Directo a Mexico, the Federal Reserve-sponsored service allows customers without Social Security numbers to wire money through the Fed system to Mexico's central bank at little cost. In September, the Fed expanded the remittance program by allowing immigrants, legal or not, to open accounts at participating banks and credit unions in the U.S. or Mexico. About 27,000 transfers are made through the program each month.

The program has attracted the attention of conservative immigration activists and members of Congress, who say financial institutions shouldn't cater to illegal immigrants.

Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (R-Solana Beach), who leads the congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, said Directo a Mexico and programs like it should be stopped and that participating banks were "profiteering from illegal immigration."

Bilbray is also targeting Bank of America Corp., which this month announced plans to offer credit cards to immigrants without Social Security numbers, drawing complaints that the nation's largest retail bank was underwriting illegal immigration.

"It's illegal for a landlord to do it, it's illegal for an employer to do it, and it should be illegal for financial institutions to do it," Bilbray said.

Bank of America has said that it complied fully with all banking and anti-terrorism laws governing customer identification, which permit the use of forms of ID other than Social Security numbers.

Bilbray said legislators were working on proposals that would prevent financial institutions such as the Fed and Bank of America from catering to illegal immigrants, and are calling on the Bush administration to address the issue.

Elizabeth McQuerry, an Atlanta-based assistant vice president for the Fed's retail payments office, said Directo a Mexico wasn't breaking any laws. She said the program complied with the Patriot Act, the Bank Secrecy Act and other laws against money laundering. Customers must provide identification — a consular identification card or other picture ID — and banks regularly check the documents' authenticity, she said.

Fed staffers developed the program with counterparts at Mexico's central bank after President Bush announced it with then-Mexican President Vicente Fox in 2003. About 150 banks and credit unions participate, including 20 in California, McQuerry said.

Directo a Mexico was intended for all Mexicans living in the U.S. It did not specifically exclude those here illegally.

Only immigrants who are in the U.S. legally can get a Social Security number, but any Mexican national can get a consular ID, regardless of legal status.

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), an advocate of increased border security who has talked in the past of taxing illegal immigrants' remittances, said the Fed program might not be breaking any financial laws, but "there is a law against aiding and abetting illegal aliens in this country."

Conservative groups are also pressing the government to stop or modify Directo a Mexico. The Washington-based conservative legal group Judicial Watch, which says it has 400,000 members, obtained a copy of a Fed presentation about Directo a Mexico in December and posted it on its website to show that the government was not only offering a subsidized service to illegal immigrants, but actively marketing and promoting it.

"This program undermines our nation's immigration laws and is a potential national security nightmare," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement at the time. "In the least, the Federal Reserve must limit this program to legal aliens and U.S. citizens only."

Ira Mehlman, the Los Angeles-based spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said Directo a Mexico not only flouted immigration law, it hurt U.S. workers by draining money from the national economy.

"This is money earned by people who have come here illegally, often earned at the expense of other Americans, and then taken out of the country and not spent here," Mehlman said.

His group — which supports enforcement of immigration laws and reports 100,000 members, about 35,000 in California — says the U.S. government should better regulate wire transfer companies rather than offer an alternative that "makes it easier and more attractive for people to come here and break the law."

Economists and Directo a Mexico supporters dispute claims that the program harms the U.S. economy, and say it will actually help fight crime by encouraging people to use a legal, regulated money transfer service. They also say it may stem illegal immigration by making it easier and cheaper to wire money home, lessening the need for the sender's relatives to cross the border to earn a living.

Philip Martin, chairman of the Comparative Immigration and Integration Program at UC Davis, said remittances sent to Mexico last year were just a fraction of the U.S. economy, $23 billion out of a gross domestic product of more than $13 trillion. And as businesses increasingly serve illegal immigrant customers, he said, it's in the country's best interest to monitor their activity through programs like the Fed's.

‘The Departed’ Wins Best Picture, Scorsese Best Director,Twenty-six years and seven snubs after his first Oscar nomination, for “Raging Bull,” Martin Scorsese finally felt the warm embrace of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Sunday as he was named best director and his murderous mob thriller “The Departed” was named the best picture of 2006.

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Monica Almeida/The New York Times,Martin Scorsese won Oscars for best director and best picture for "The Departed." ,After seven snubs, Martin Scorsese finally won an Oscar. But did he win for the right movie?
Helen Mirren was named best actress for "The Queen."“Could you double-check the envelope?” Mr. Scorsese quipped after silencing a raucous standing ovation of whistling, whooping academy members.

“I’m so moved,” he said, accepting the directing prize. “So many people over the years have been wishing this for me. Strangers — I go into doctors’ offices, elevators, I go for an X-ray — they say, ‘You should win one.’ ”

Forest Whitaker won best actor for his performance as the cunning, seductive and savage Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland.”

“Receiving this honor tells me that it’s possible,” Mr. Whitaker said. “It is possible, for a kid from East Texas, raised in South Central L.A., and Carson, who believes in dreams, who believes them in his heart, to touch them and have them happen.”

Helen Mirren took best actress for her performance as a traditional monarch in a modern world in “The Queen.”

“For 50 years or more, Elizabeth Windsor has maintained her dignity, her sense of duty and her hairstyle,” Ms. Mirren said. “I salute her courage and her consistency, and I thank her, for if it wasn’t for her, I most certainly would not be here.”

Graham King, the only of three credited producers permitted to accept the best-picture award for “The Departed,” said, “To be standing here where Martin Scorsese won his Oscar is such a joy.” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” Guillermo Del Toro’s magical-realist fantasy set in 1944 Fascist Spain, received Oscars for cinematography, art direction and makeup at the 79th Academy Awards ceremony, but fell short of its ultimate prize, best foreign-language film, which went to “The Lives of Others,” from Germany.

Jennifer Hudson, the “American Idol” reject-turned-star of “Dreamgirls,” was named best supporting actress, giving two of the four acting awards to African-Americans. And Alan Arkin, the cranky, heroin-snorting grandfather in the bittersweet family comedy “Little Miss Sunshine,” won best supporting actor.

“Little Miss Sunshine” also won for its original screenplay by Michael Arndt, a former assistant to Matthew Broderick who had to wait seven years for his script to be produced. “When I was a kid my family drove 500 miles in a van with a broken clutch,” he said, explaining the source of his inspiration. “It ended up being one of the funnest things we did together.”

On a night in which several top awards came as no surprise, “An Inconvenient Truth,” the documentary featuring Al Gore on global warming, won best documentary feature.

“I made this movie for my children,” said the director, Davis Guggenheim, his arm on Mr. Gore’s shoulder. “We were moved to act by this man.”

Mr. Gore took his moment in the worldwide spotlight to underline the film’s message. “My fellow Americans, people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis,” he said, adding that the “will to act” was a renewable resource. “Let’s renew it,” he said.

That film also won best original song, for “I Need to Wake Up,” by Melissa Etheridge, upsetting “Dreamgirls,” which had three songs in contention. Holding her Oscar aloft backstage, Ms. Etheridge quipped that it would be “the only naked man who will ever be in my bedroom.”

In a twist, “The Lives of Others,” which examined the Orwellian police state that was East Germany, won in something of an upset. The German director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, thanked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California “for teaching me that the words ‘I can’t’ should be stricken from my vocabulary.”

The awards for Mr. Del Toro’s movie came on a night in which his and two other films by Mexican directors were up for a total of 16 honors. One of them, “Babel,” won for its original score by Gustavo Santaolalla, who also won last year for “Brokeback Mountain.”

“Happy Feet” was named the year’s best animated feature.

Accepting for best supporting actor, Mr. Arkin said that “Little Miss Sunshine” was about “innocence, growth and connection.” His voice cracking, he praised his fellow actors, saying that acting was a “team sport.” He added, “I can’t work at all unless I feel the spirit of unity around me.”

William Monahan won best adapted screenplay for “The Departed,” his transplantation of the movie “Infernal Affairs” from Hong Kong to South Boston.

An Oscar also went to Thelma Schoonmaker, the longtime editor to Mr. Scorsese. She saluted Mr. Scorsese for being “tumultuous, passionate, funny” as a collaborator. “It’s like being in the best film school in the world,” she said.

“Dreamgirls,” nominated for eight awards, the most of any film, also won for sound mixing. But Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto,” whose three nominations were caught up in the tempest caused by the director’s drunken, anti-Semitic rant last summer, was shut out.

Ellen DeGeneres made her first appearance as the host of the movie industry’s annual celebration of itself, on a night expected to have its share of pregnant moments. Three filmmaking titans — Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola — presentedthe award for best director.

Ms. DeGeneres said it had been a lifelong dream of hers to be host for the Oscars, rather than to win one. “Let that be a lesson to you kids out there: Aim lower,” she said, sounding a theme for the evening’s opening, which was designed to honor the many nominees, 177 in all, rather than focusing on the winners.

Ms. DeGeneres repeatedly ventured into the audience, at one point getting Mr. Spielberg to take a picture of her with Clint Eastwood, “for MySpace.”

And in a choice full of irony for industry insiders, Tom Cruise, who was thrown off the Paramount lot last summer by Viacom’s chairman, Sumner M. Redstone, gave the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Sherry Lansing, the former Paramount chairwoman who retired during a shake-up by Mr. Redstone two years earlier.

Backstage, Ms. Lansing said she had not known that Mr. Cruise was going to give her the award. “I saw him at an Oscar party a few days before, and he was sort of cold to me,” she said. Onstage, she said, he had whispered in her ear: “This is an honor. I really wanted to do this, you know how much I love you.” Ms. Lansing said she believed Mr. Cruise, who had a rough year before taking over management of United Artists, would be back to pick up an Oscar for directing or producing within five years.

Ennio Morricone, the Italian composer, received an honorary Oscar from Mr. Eastwood, who starred in the spaghetti westerns for which Mr. Morricone provided the unmistakable music.

The program began with a bouncy montage, directed by Errol Morris, of interview snippets with nominees reciting, among other things, the number of times they had come close to winning an Oscar. “Zilch,” said Peter O’Toole, of the number of times he had won.

Will Ferrell and Jack Black, leading members of Hollywood’s comedy rat pack, did a song-and-dance number bemoaning the paucity of comedic talent among the Oscar nominees. “I guess you don’t like laughter,” Mr. Ferrell sang. “A comedian at the Oscars is the saddest, bitterest, alcoholic clown.”