On the night before his crucifixion, Jesus was (allegedly) brought before the Jewish council, the Sanhedrin, to face charges made against him. Read carefully the following account of this (alleged) event in the first gospel written, the Gospel of Mark. You will notice that not once does ANYONE allege that Jesus had been criss crossing Judea and Galilee claiming to be Yahweh, the Creator, as many Christians would like us to believe. The facts are: In the Synoptic Gospels, neither Jesus nor any of his disciples claim that he is God. He may have claimed that he had been authorized (by God) to forgive sins while on earth, but that is not the same as claiming to be God himself.
The evidence strongly indicates that the historical Jesus never claimed to be God. The evidence also strongly indicates that the earliest Jewish Christians did not see Jesus as God but simply as the Messiah. Later generations of Gentile Christians invented the concept that Jesus was a god, a member of a Trinity (a polytheistic, pagan concept to Jews), and eventually, that he was Yahweh, God the Creator.
Jesus Before the Sanhedrin–Gospel of Mark, chapter 14
53 They took Jesus to the high priest, and all the chief priests, the elders and the teachers of the law came together. 54 Peter followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest. There he sat with the guards and warmed himself at the fire. 55 The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death, but they did not find any. 56 Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree.
57 Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: 58 “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with human hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.’” 59 Yet even then their testimony did not agree. 60 Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” 61 But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.
Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?”
62 “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
63 The high priest tore his clothes. “Why do we need any more witnesses?” he asked. 64 “You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?” They all condemned him as worthy of death. 65 Then some began to spit at him; they blindfolded him, struck him with their fists, and said, “Prophesy!” And the guards took him and beat him.
Gary: Notice that the chief priest never asks Jesus, “Are you the Blessed One? Are you G_d?”
This passage in the Bible proves that Jesus NEVER claimed to be God! If he had been making such a claim, the high priest would have accused him of such. But he didn’t! The chief priest only accused him of claiming to be the Messiah, the Son of God.
.
.
.
.
.
End of post.
Escaping Christian Fundamentalism 
A very good summary Gary of Jesus’ simple humanity as a 1st-century Palestinian Jew and ascending Rabbi-Reformer. Period. That’s all the historical Jesus was as you correctly point out here:
But not only do the Greco-Roman [Gentile] Synoptic Gospels unveil their erroneous translations of Jesus’ oral teachings and his claims or NON-claims, but examining closely Jewish literature of the Tannaim Era (10–220 CE) as well, which certainly includes Jesus’ lifetime, in concert with other contemporaneous literature such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ebionite Christian literature of the period… all reveal an incredible level of diversity of Second Temple Messianism. Sadly, the Greco-Roman Gentiles—eventually the surviving Judeo-Christians & eventual Earliest Roman Church Fathers—grossly and naively misunderstood Jewish Messianic fervor. And that’s putting there naiveté mildly.
Close examination of Jesus’ Jewish Messianic theology, we see it represents an amalgam of various aspects of Sectarian Judaism of the time. This is undeniable when any “neutral” person curious about the VERIFIED history studies closely (and equitably) the ENTIRE extant evidence of the Rabbinical Tannaim Era. I can’t stress this enough. Additionally, examining Jewish Rabbinical literature before the 1st-century CE does indeed show Jesus representing another niche of Second Temple Messianism: merely a Palestinian Jew deeply passionate about the Torah and purifying its correct practices. Period. The earliest Roman Church Fathers—decades & centuries later I might add—wrongly re-interpreted Jesus’ Messianic teachings inside the full context of contemporaneous Rabbinical literature still extant today, and with further corroborating support from again, the Dead Sea Scrolls and even Ebionite Christian literature.
Furthermore, Evangelical-Fundamental Christian Apologetics are solely based upon Jesus the Nazaraene being the divine “Son of God” but strictly THROUGH Jewish Messianic fervor of the period. Unfortunately, that direct link can’t be made. It is utterly and completely ill-founded and ultimately bogus. Point and case, all of the Messiah’s criteria to be a/the Messiah from correct Judaism—based upon Judaism’s template from Ezekiel 37:24-28 are six (6) simple requirements. Of those 6 requirements, Jesus fulfills only ONE: he was a Jew. There are many further problems for naïve Christian apologists claiming Jesus as the Messiah and/or “Son of God,” but they are too lengthy to go into here—unless of course Gary, you’d extend the invitation for them. 🙂
To conclude, the historical Jesus can NEVER be separated or amputated from his 1st-century, Torah-loving, Palestinian Jewish Messianism correctly and fully explained within Second Temple Judaism’s exhaustive historical context. Period. Not Gentile Greco-Roman traditions! Jesus was never the wild imaginations later concocted by Gentile Romans fictitiously made him out to be. The truth about the real historical Jesus can be verified and thus proven inside proper Second Temple Judaism-Messianism. Christians need only put aside their arrogant prides and get to it… doing the necessary required legwork and homework with fairness, not with personal/familial bias and sensationalism.
Excellent work Gary.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Do keep up the outstanding work. In this country (USA) your voice here is BADLY needed to dispel ridiculous superstitions from the 1st-century CE! 🙂
LikeLike
I’m veering away from the topic, but would like to point out that, unlike what many modern apologists want us to believe, in the quoted verses from Mark, testimony in the ancient world could be rejected if there were conflicting reports:
14:56 Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree.
14:59 Yet even then their testimony did not agree.
This resulted in the chief priests and Sanhedrin concluding there was no evidence:
The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death, but they did not find any
Mark 14:55
(NIV)
Note that they didn’t say, well one story could be true at one time, but not another. Or that it’s possible both could be true, let’s find some way to reconcile them. Or that the statements were speaking some greater truth. They rejected them because they conflicted with one another.
Modern skeptics reject many of the parts of the gospels because they do not agree, yet apologists act like we are violating some principle of evidence, and that the ancient world did not have this attitude. Yet, at least according to Mark’s gospel, people in the ancient world would indeed dismiss testimony if it was in conflict with other testimony.
LikeLike
This passage in the Bible proves that Jesus NEVER claimed to be God! If he had been making such a claim, the high priest would have accused him of such.“
—
I’d like to make an entry into the discussion here… Firstly just a question- Why is it important to try to make this argument? If one chooses to not believe in Jesus that’s fine, that is anyone’s free choice. I don’t understand the desire to keep talking about the identity of Jesus, unless Jesus is important to you. If so, then we have something in common!
Second: Here’s something I read that leads me to believe Jesus did claim to be God. “57 So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and You have seen Abraham?”
58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.”
59 Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and left the temple grounds.”
1) He claimed to pre-exist Abraham
2) He said “I am” (same construction as the divine name of God)
3) The pharisees tried to stone him to death for blaspheming
This is just a snippet – all of John 8 bears this out more.
Third, I don’t think the trial at the Sanhedrin undermines Jesus’ claim for deity. The assumption seems to be 1) an argument out of silence. The absence proving a positive point. ‘Jesus never said it here, so that proves he never said it.’ The question ‘Would the Sanhedrin be trying to get him on the blasphemy of claiming deity?’ I think bears some questioning. What were the Jewish authorities trying to do? Have Jesus put to death of course. A limitation on their power as an occupied territory of Rome was they couldn’t try and execute without Roman approval – hence the need to convince Pontius Pilate at the stone pavement. This nightly ‘trial’ of Jesus needed to conclude with charges that could be brought to the Roman authorities for crucifixion. It makes way more sense to me for them to portray Jesus as a dangerous seditionist rebel that would threaten Roman political power, than a claim to be divine – hence leaning toward “Messiah” blasphemy. Another assumption is that Messiah King doesn’t have implications of divinity. I think it does from reading Isaiah 9 specifically where the Messiah is called “mighty God, prince of peace..”. The absence from the trial of an accusation “you claimed to be God didn’t you” is interesting, but to me could not remotely be called proof.
LikeLike
I don’t believe that there is any good evidence that Jesus ever claimed to be God in the SYNOPTICS. The fact is that Jesus is only referred to as God ONCE in all of the Gospels and that is in the Gospel of John, written some 60 years after Jesus’ death. I know that Trintarians believe that Jesus implied he was God in the Synoptics, but I do not buy it.
My bet is that the original Jesus only saw himself as the human Messiah, an earthly, human king with some special God-given magical powers. He was a loon.
LikeLike
Believe what you will! For myself, it seems quite clear what Jesus thinks of himself when he says something like this:
Mat 24:30-31 “…when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send HIS angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather HIS elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”
And 35 “heaven and earth will pass away, but MY words will never pass away”
Or Mat 11:28 “Come to ME all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest for your souls.”
LikeLike
Sorry, one more from Matthew 28. Curious what you make of this.
17 And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some fnwere doubtful.
18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
19 “fnGo, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to fnfollow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you fnalways, to the end of the age.”
Things I see:
1) received worship
2) claimed all authority in earthly and spiritual realm
3) included the Trinity: father, son, and spirit
4) Instructed them to follow his commands
5) said he’d be with then even to the end
LikeLike
Why would God say that he had been given all authority in heaven and on earth if he alone is the one who possesses all authority as Christianity claims?
LikeLike
It is possible that you are right. Trinitarian and non-Trinitarian Christians have been fighting over this issue for 2,000 years.
Bottom line: Jesus was just one in a long line of delusional religious zealots. We should take his claims about himself no more seriously than those of Mohammad, Joseph Smith, David Koresh, or the leader of the Heaven’s Gate cult.
The evidence that Jesus of Nazareth is the Creator God is pathetically poor.
LikeLike
Yeah, why Jesus says he was “given all authority”… I don’t know at the moment. An interesting question I’ll be thinking about/investigating.
I’m thinking we probably won’t be able to reach a place where we see eye to eye, so I’m not sure how much more to get into it in this venue. Probably goes without saying that I cannot get on board with the bottom line you put forward 🙂 Really my aim was to present a case that Jesus did claim deity and spoke thusly. Thank you for allowing me to share my perspective and take the time to engage me on these questions!
LikeLike
You are welcome!
LikeLike
Yeah, why Jesus says he was “given all authority”… I don’t know at the moment. An interesting question I’ll be thinking about/investigating.
Just be aware that Christian apologists have been aware of this apparent contradiction to the doctrine of the Trinity for almost 2,000 years yet Trinitarianism is still the dominant form of Christianity. How is that possible? Answer: People who really, really want to believe something will ALWAYS find a way around any contradiction.
LikeLike
TRUTH!! … People who really, really want to believe something will ALWAYS find a way around any contradiction.
LikeLike
This is why I believe in the trinity, if we’re going to go there…
Matthew 3:16
“After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him.”
Matthew 12:28
“But if I [Jesus] cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”
Matthew 28:19
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit . . .”
Luke 3:22
“And the Holy Spirit descended upon Him [Jesus] in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, “You are My [the Father’s] beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.”
John 14:26
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My [Jesus’] name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”
John 15:26
“When the Helper comes, whom I [Jesus] will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me . . .”
Acts 1:4
“Gathering them together, He [Jesus] commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me . . .”
Acts 2:33
“Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He [Jesus] has poured forth this which you both see and hear.”
Acts 10:38
“You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.”
Romans 1:4
“Who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord . . .”
Romans 8:9
“However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”
1 Corinthians 6:11
Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
2 Corinthians 13:14
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
Galatians 4:6
Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
Ephesians 1:17
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.
Ephesians 2:18
For through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.
Ephesians 2:22
In whom [Jesus] you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.
Titus 3:6
Whom [the Holy Spirit] He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.
Hebrews 9:14
How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
1 Peter 1:2
According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: may grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.
—
There are many more like this…
Again, believe that this is all made up if you like. But it’s not arbitrary, it’s all there in the bible for Christians. To throw all of that out for the sake of one unclear verse would be bad hermeneutics, frankly.
Peace and love! Gotta get off this thread and do other stuff! You prob won’t hear from me after this but it’s been very interesting!
LikeLike
But what if this one verse is the irrefutable evidence that the books of the Bible were not inspired by an all-knowing God; an all-knowing God whose inspiration and direction would assure the harmony and consistency of Christian teaching?
Your mind is in a tail-spin right now. As we speak, you are desperately trying to force this one “outlier” passage to conform with the many other passages that seem to agree with Trinitarian doctrine. In order to resolve your cognitive dissonance, you will be tempted to appeal to the principle of “Scripture interprets Scripture”, which is just a sophisticated-sounding way of saying “I will force any “problem” passage in the Bible to fit with the preconceived doctrines and teachings of my particular Christian denomination”.
A crack in the thick layer of your religious brainwashing has just occurred, my friend. Don’t be afraid. Use this opportunity to explore the truth claims of Christianity with an open mind, willing to accept whatever outcome that an open-minded review of the evidence might bring.
LikeLike
Hi there, I’m coming back to this conversation after some period of busyness in my life. And I hope this finds you well. I couldn’t help but read your previous reply and feel it merits a response.
First, I must address – You’ve said my ‘mind is in a tail-spin’? That this exchange constitutes a ‘crack in my religious brainwashing’? ‘Don’t be afraid.’ You are inviting me to ‘explore the truth claims of Christianity with an open mind’? Let’s review something – what do you truly know about me? My name? The comments I’ve made here?…
Are you convinced that I am brainwashed because I am a Christian? Are you open to the idea that someone may believe something different to you whilst not being brainwashed? If not, then I submit that further dialogue is fruitless. If I’ve been pre-judged to have no mind of my own, then any case I bring may be attributed to my brainwashing. But remember that there are no ‘neutral’ positions. We all come with our biases don’t we? I freely admit mine!
But I invite you to reserve judgment and allow me my mind back. Free and open conversations between people of different worldviews can be very enriching and sharpening when done in a charitable way. And rather than being afraid of it, I do enjoy a good back and forth like this!
—
Okay, on the assumption that a conversation can still be beneficial, which I believe and hope it is – I’d really like to explore further the point we left off.
But before that maybe some common ground would be helpful to establish. Because I’m heartened by it:
– We are earnest seekers of truth (whatever the end, I think it’s apparent we want to know and find that. I think this is evident in your approach)
– Value independent thinking / free thought – You clearly value the ability to explore thoughts unrestrained from social conditioning or coercion. I love this! So do I! As a 19 year old it was hard to field attacks from my family that I’d gone off the rails for believing in Jesus. I’ve come to lament coercion and love free thinking.
– We both seem to believe there is a truth of things that can be attained
– Our disdain for “Fundamentalist Christianity” (Yes! As I see it. Maybe you put me in that category simply for the beliefs I have, but the way I view it is more of an inflexible, highly dogmatic and anti-intellectual approach). This is something I agree all people should try to ‘escape’.
—
On to the topic of Matthew 28:18-20 – Is this “Irrefutable evidence that the books of the Bible were not inspired by God…”? You contend yes. I contend no.
My thesis will be two-fold:
1) Matthew 28:18-20 is NOT ‘irrefutable’ evidence of a contradiction in the Bible.
2) Rather, it IS ‘persuasive’ evidence toward the notion that Jesus, according to the book of Matthew, viewed himself equal with God.
(Caveat: I am not at this point arguing Jesus IS God, simply that in the book of Matthew he VIEWS himself as God.)
———
Matthew 28:18-20
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
——
Thesis Part 1: Dealing with the apparent contradiction.
Your argument, as I understand it is: If Jesus received authority at a fixed point in time, then he did not have a past-eternal sovereignty. Since one of God’s attributes is sovereignty, therefore Jesus could not be God. (Logical rule: Two contradictory things cannot both be true at the same time) Okay, I can see where you’re coming from, honestly! But I see things a little differently, and I’ll try to unpack why.
a. Greek Grammar: The critical phrase the argument is based on “has been given”. In Greek, this is the verb “didomi”, Here it is being used in the Aorist Passive Indicative.
Wikipedia on this: The word comes from Ancient Greek ἀόριστος aóristos “indefinite”,[1] as the aorist was the unmarked (default) form of the verb, and thus did not have the implications of the imperfective aspect, which referred to an ongoing or repeated situation, or the perfect, which referred to a situation with a continuing relevance; instead it described an action “pure and simple”.
With this in view, I think it can be argued that what we’re seeing here is not reference to an action done in time, but one done “pure and simple”.
Again Wikipedia on this: Because the aorist was not maintained in either Latin or the Germanic languages, there have long been difficulties in translating the Greek New Testament into Western languages. The aorist has often been interpreted as making a strong statement about the aspect or even the time of an event, when, in fact, due to its being the unmarked (default) form of the Greek verb, such implications are often left to context. Thus, within New Testament hermeneutics, it is considered an exegetical fallacy to attach undue significance to uses of the aorist.[13] Although one may draw specific implications from an author’s use of the imperfective or perfect, no such conclusions can, in general, be drawn from the use of the aorist, which may refer to an action “without specifying whether the action is unique, repeated, ingressive, instantaneous, past, or accomplished.”[13]…
Okay, the argument then is, this verb semantically leaves open the possibility, and perhaps even probability that this is not speaking to the timeliness of the occurrence. Maybe we could think of it more like this: “the Son is imbued with sovereignty over heaven and earth”.
The question remains – We’re still talking about Jesus being ‘given’ authority, not just ‘having’ all authority, but was ‘given’ it from the outside. By whom?!? To answer the ‘whom’ question, we go elsewhere.
No, this passage is NOT an outlier, as you said. There are many passages that affirm the same statement [John 5:19, John 5:22, John 5:27, John 5:30, Luke 10:22, Luke 21:36, Ephesians 1:20-21, Philippians 2:9, 1 Peter 3:22, Mark 13:26, and Mark 13:31, Daniel 7:13-14] and give variation in how we understand it, including the explicit phrase about who Jesus received authority from:
Let’s take Luke 10:22 “All things have been committed to me by my father”. Or John 5:22 “…the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son”
b. Context
Ultimately the reason for Christ’s being given sovereignty has to do with the event of the cross, as seen within Christian understanding, as an event in space-time-history. So we come to context. In Matthew 28, in the context, Jesus just went to the cross, taking on the judgment of all nations onto himself, paving the way for forgiveness for all nations, and rose again from the dead and is now speaking with his disciples. This is the work Jesus came to do on earth, and having accomplished it, gives him the singular right to judge the nations. Think about it – only the one who has experienced the full wrath of God and human sin in its entirety has any right to judge. And only one with the full compassion of God is one who could judge fairly (Jesus, as he is being publicly humiliated and executed and stripped naked in front of his friends and loved ones, reportedly exclaimed: “forgive them father, they know not what they’re doing”.
– Philippians 2:9 is helpful here: “…Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, …”
c. The Nature of God
The doctrine of the trinity obviously comes into play here. God the Father gives God the Son authority. And it’s probably something that will be difficult to really getting into because of the nature of it. I just want to make a point based on logic here.
I think implicit in the idea that this verse pointing to Jesus’ humanity has to do with the act of bestowing authority. Since Jesus was ‘given’ authority means he is lesser than God. But does this logically follow? Does bestowing authority say anything about the intrinsic nature of the being either giving or receiving? I would say no.
– Consider a couple examples:
– 1) A police captain bestows authority on an officer specific duties and tasks to carry out as an officer of the law. Is the captain greater in kind? We would say they are equals.
– 2) My wife gave me the ‘authority’ to put up whatever pictures I want in the basement. (Hehe) I specifically like this case because we have here an example of shared authority. My wife and I together make decisions about our home. But my wife here has conceded ALL the authority over the basement to me to judge what pictures should go up. Again, we would say that we are still equals in our intrinsic nature as humans.
Okay – so I don’t expect you fully agree with everything I wrote. But I hope you will see that for me as a Christian believer, this passage is basic to the Christian doctrine and really hinges on much broader theological premises – the nature of God, Jesus’ ability to become incarnated in human form and return to a heavenly state. These are already premises I’ve come to accept, so your pointing out this aspect of ‘giving’ authority doesn’t really change anything for me. Does this make sense?
Okay… if you’re up for it. Thesis Part 2:
I think this passage demonstrates persuasive evidence that Jesus, according to the book of Matthew, viewed himself equal with God. Why do I think that? I think it’s demonstrated in seven ways:
He claimed sovereignty over heaven and earth (remember this is in the context of a highly religious first century Jewish milieu)
Identified himself within a list of three: “Father, SON and Holy Spirit”
Identified as someone in whose name all nations should be “baptized” (i.e. sins washed clean)
The cultural context is important here to fully understand what he’s saying. We know that in the first century, baptism was practiced by Jews, but only on non-Jewish converts to Judaism. The notion was that a person needed to have their former sinfulness washed clean. When John the Baptist came on the scene baptizing Jews, this was new so far as we can tell. (John is mentioned by Josephus for one – we’re talking about history, which I think you would not take issue with. Bart Erhman is pretty fair, and will affirm all this). The idea of ritual baptism then was indicative of someone’s sin being washed clean, atoned before God.
The Jewish Yom Kippur is all about atonement of course. This idea of atonement is common to Judaism and Christianity. When Jesus came on the scene, now claiming that it is in His name that atonement takes place, this has more theological implications than the lay reader today may give credit. Names were incredibly important – they constituted a persons being and identity. To be baptized (washed clean) in the name of an individual would be equivalent to a claim to divinity in this cultural context.
In his role as a Jewish rabbi, told them to obey all that HE commanded, not all that YHWH commanded.
Again, we may be familiar today with all sorts of ways to view a claim like this. We are exposed to eastern mystic gurus who have teachings and such, we have self-help teachers. We see things through this lens naturally. But if we put ourselves into the shoes of a first century Jewish person – They were familiar with hearing rabbi’s declare the teaching of Yahweh, and were incredibly sensitive to not go beyond what Yahweh said. The prophets write “The LORD declares”, not “I declare”. Thus Jesus here and elsewhere telling all nations to obey His commandments, would have been seen as blasphemy (except if he were Yahweh himself of course)
Claimed continued existence even to the end of the age (Greek: aion)
Admittedly, this could be interpreted in a range of ways. But based on the fact that in the narrative, he just rose from the dead, and that in Luke/Acts, he will soon ascend into the clouds, I think we’re safe to interpret this more than just “I’ll be with you in your hearts”
Right before this in verse 17, he accepts worship. (Again, think of a first century Jewish religious culture. What is he communicating to his audience here?)
This passage alludes to a known Messianic prediction from Daniel 7:13-14, whom this OT passage and others portray as divine:
Daniel 7:13-14 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”
Remember that “Son of Man” was Jesus’ favorite title of himself, using it over 80 times across all four gospels.
Note that both one called the “Ancient of Days” and the “Son of Man” are represented here. Notice that the Son of Man is given “Authority, Glory and Sovereignty over all nations.”
Note that the peoples of the earth bow down to the “Son of Man” here
Note that the same allusion to eternal continual existence is given – “everlasting dominion that will not pass away”
A claim to Messiah is claim to be God. Furthermore, Jews at the time knew it!
I say this with confidence because we have external sources where Jewish rabbis demonstrate their belief that the Messiah was divine. In the Targum of Isaiah (a sort of commentary version of Isaiah used by rabbis), we find the following statement regarding the Messianic passage of Isaiah 9 –
“His name has been called from old, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, he who lives forever, the Anointed One (Messiah), in whose days peace shall increase upon us.” (Targum Isaiah)
Clearly, the writer associate the Messiah with the one to be called “Mighty God, Everlasting Father”
Notice that we’ve looked into only 4 verses, out of one chapter of Matthew. There are 27 more chapters and scores of examples we could look at! I hope this has been at least persuasive to some degree that Jesus viewed himself as God. It is just imbedded throughout the gospels and the NT at large.
Anyway, that’s what I have to say about that. Peace and Happy Holidays,
–Paul
LikeLike
Christians and skeptics, and Christians among themselves, have been arguing over the christology in the Gospels for 2,000 years. I don’t think you and I are going to settle it.
The eyewitness authorship of the Gospels is hotly disputed among scholars. Disputed testimony is not good evidence. Therefore, the Gospels are not historically reliable documents, my friend. We cannot be sure exactly what Jesus said. You are assuming that the anonymous author of Matthew correctly quoted something Jesus said and has remembered the correct verb tenses that Jesus’ used. Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions: the glue that holds together the Christian belief system.
LikeLike
All history is eyewitness testimony by definition. If you presume to know anything about the past then you trust sources of eyewitness.
Consider if you presume to know anything of the likes of Alexander the Great and his conquests? Do you not know you are relying on source material written in the 1st century AD by a Roman historian (over 300 years after his death)? Or do you scoff at the testimony of a WWII survivor when you hear him describe what it smelled like to be under shell fire, what it felt like as the shock of compressed air passed through his body? No, rather, it is history in its essence. Communication of events through the vehicle of human language, oral or written – thoughtfully considered, checked for bias, deliberated by those in the present, which is our prerogative.
Consider by comparison to Alexander the Great, our copy the John Ryland papyrus of John, dated perhaps to the beginning of the 2nd century… within 50-100 years of its original authorship. In the NT we have the best preservation of manuscripts in number of copies and proximity to autographs of any ancient text – bar none. Thats not overstated.
LikeLike
All history is eyewitness testimony by definition. If you presume to know anything about the past then you trust sources of eyewitness.
If 500 villagers in southern India claimed to all have seen, at one time and place, a cow give a thirty minute speech in Hindi, should we believe their story just because there are so many sincere eyewitnesses?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Consider by comparison to Alexander the Great, our copy the John Ryland papyrus of John, dated perhaps to the beginning of the 2nd century… within 50-100 years of its original authorship. In the NT we have the best preservation of manuscripts in number of copies and proximity to autographs of any ancient text – bar none. Thats not overstated.
The existence of thousands, even millions, of copies of a story in no way confirms the veracity/historicity of that story. And just because we have a copy of the original from the second century, 50-100 years after the original was written, is no guarantee that the original story from which it was copied was true. It amazes me that Christians do not understand this very simple concept.
LikeLike
Naturally, as a believer, all your “proof” comes from the bible. Problem is –and what Gary (and MANY others) continually points out on his blog– the scriptures are NOT infallible. But most Christians do not want to accept this.
LikeLike
What I intended to demonstrate is that the doctrine of the trinity is uniformly attested teaching within the canon of scripture. To do this requires an examination of the text.
I rather agree that to show that the Bible accords with reality would require a different kind of analysis!
LikeLike
Yet, tens of thousands of Arian Christians read the same Bible differently in the fourth century and hundreds of thousands of non-Trinitarian Christians today continue to not see the Trinity anywhere in the Gospels!
LikeLike
The point I’m hearing is “Not everyone agrees with you.” I know that! Christians have subcategories that believe different doctrines, The same is true across the world: Hindus, Buddhists – truly many atheists hold to different forms or variations of materialism, naturalism, existentialism, etc and so forth. Forgive my bluntness but: so what?
No worldview position has held unanimity – and if it did, I’d be a bit suspicious some genuine brainwashing was going on!
Why don’t you grapple with the arguments I’m putting forward?
LikeLike
I have a policy: I don’t argue Greek, because as the saying goes: It’s all Greek to me.
The idea that you are capable of better translating the Greek phrase that all English translators since the fourteenth century have translated as “all power has been given to me by the Father” is preposterous.
This is another deceptive strategy of Christian apologists: Bamboozle the average reader of the Bible into believing that he or she must speak and read fluent Koine Greek to understand what the original Christian scriptures said. Baloney.
LikeLike
If God and Jesus are the same person, how do you explain Mark 14: 62 “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
63 The high priest tore his clothes. “Why do we need any more witnesses?” he asked. 64 “You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?”
Can one person sit beside himself and why isn’t the alleged third person there as well?
LikeLiked by 1 person