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Loading...Do we know what Jesus said about himself? Yesterday I started my two-prong argument for why Jesus probably considered himself the messiah. The first prong is that Jesus must have been called the messiah during his lifetime, or it makes no sense that he would be called messiah after his death. Even if there were Jews who believed that Jesus was raised from the dead after he was crucified (as indeed there were! Otherwise we wouldn’t have Christianity), the resurrection of a dead person would never lead anyone to say “Ah, he’s the messiah!”. No one expected the messiah to be a resurrected person.
So Jesus was being called the messiah before his death. Otherwise, we can’t make sense of the fact that he was called the messiah after his (believed-in) resurrection.
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I simply have a technical remark : why some words appear between two * * on my screen, like for instance ‘…he *had* to go to Jerusalem…’
Did you wrote : ….he ‘ had ‘ to go to Jerusalem…. in the original ?
It’s because my keyboard won’t produce bold, italics, or underlining on the blog. It’s just for emphasis.
than I kindly would recommend you to use ‘ ‘ instead of * * because it is less abnormal in a text
The seem like quotation marks to me. Plus, hey, I’m allowed quirks, right?
You said that “the resurrection of a dead person would never lead anyone to say ‘Ah, he’s the messiah!'” And I totally understand your point that a resurrected crucifixion victim wouldn’t meet the definition of a messiah to first century Jews. But isn’t that exactly what happened with Paul – the fact that he came to believe Jesus had been resurrected led him to believe that Jesus was the messiah? Why did it work on Paul if not on other Jews of his time?
Ah, good point. It’s a little bit tricky though. No one expected the messiah to be raised. It is only because JEsus had been considered the Chosen One of God *already* that anyone who came to think that he had been raised really was the Chosen One of God; and if as the “chosen one” they meant the “messiah” then they would conclude that he was the chosen one, the son of God, the messiah. But some random person had thought to have come back to life, no one would think that MADE them the messiah, unless they had previous thought they were the messiah. In Paul’s case, he’d been hearing Xns say Jesus was the messiah, so when he came to believe in the resurrection he realized he really was the one God specially favored after all.
Dr. Ehrman, no need to post this. You have a link above with the following text: all the things Jesus says in the non-canonical Gospels
It’s a link to Christianity.com. On that page there are several various topics, one of which is “Did Jesus Actually Claim to Be God?” and it argues directly against what you’re saying in your post above.
Whoa. That’s worth knowing. Thanks.
Professor,
Perhaps next post you can touch on Luke 22:28-30:
“ That ye [desciples] may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
Mack has it in his third level of Q probably least likely to br historical?
Yes, in his view it is not likely historical. I think he is completely wrong. I don’t see there’s much of any way a later Christian would put a saying on jesus’ lips that indicates that Judas Iscariot would be one of the twelve rulers of the kingdom. Mack does not think Jesus was an apocalypticist and so naturally apocalyptic sayigs are not original. (This idea of three layers of Q strikes me as highly problematic; how can we establish “editions” of a text we don’t even have??)
Our earliest Gospel, Mark, inaugurates Jesus’ story by citing Isaiah 40:3, heralding the Lord God’s arrival – unmistakably referencing Jesus. This deliberate connection establishes Jesus’ divine messianic identity.
In ancient philosophical context, Aristotle’s “Generation of Animals” clarifies the significance of Jesus’ paternity. Aristotle argues that a being’s form, determining its essence, comes from the father. The Christ Hymn (Philippians 2:6-11), our earliest Christological source, declares Jesus to be “in the form of God” (en morphē Theou), signifying He shares God’s essential nature.
Mark’s narrative reinforces this divine connection, introducing Jesus as “the Son of God” (Mark 1:1), implying sameness in kind with God. Jesus Himself underscores this in Mark 12:37, questioning how the Messiah, David’s son, could also be David’s Lord. This paradox resolves only if Jesus is both David’s descendant and divine Lord.
Mark 1:11/9:7 do NOT contain adoptionist language. Jesus IS God’s son, he does not BECOME God’s son. The statement is made to publicly affirm his identity, not to adopt him.
Jesus’s authority over the sabbath and control of nature in Mark imply divinity.
Mark 6:50 and 14:62 Jesus uses I AM statements.
These early Christian sources cumulatively attest to Jesus’ divine nature and messianic outlook.
When I was much younger. I thought & in some ways still believe if the Holy Spirit “breathed”/inspired on the scriptures. All the elements in the OT would be correct w/the NT