I have just gotten to this portion of Dr. Ehrman’s book, How Jesus became God? I do not intend to contribute to the question whether Jesus did or did not think himself divine; rather, I call into question the question itself. How might the question be answered? Dr. Ehrman’s approach is through analyzing the gospel sayings; that is, by establishing the original sayings of Jesus (which excludes almost all of John’s gospel) and noting that nowhere among these isolated sayings does Jesus declare himself unequivocally to be God. My problem with this whole approach is almost psychological. People in general do not frequently discuss their own classifications aloud. To ask whether Jesus thought he was god and proceed along Dr. Ehrman’s line of inquiry is like asking whether Dr. Ehrman believes he is human and then noting that nowhere in his books does he say, “I, Dr. Ehrman, declare myself human” and concluding the answer in the negative. (obviously if there is an exception, it only slightly injures my point.) Or if the genus human is too broad, let us take the more unique attribute of genius. The word Einstein is almost synonymous with the adjective genius. But Einstein did not go around calling himself genius; most geniuses don’t. they are too busy doing genius things and thinking genius thoughts. It is we, the hoi polloi, who so label them by observing their genius feats and reading the kinds of things that only a geniuses think. It is thus not surprising to me that though his followers came to declare him God, he never did.
One might object by pointing out that Jesus did in fact identify himself as something, namely, Messiah. If he felt free to publicize that, then, assuming he thought himself divine, why would he not make that public as well? But Messiahship and divinity are not exact parallels. The first entails a role, a function; deity is a status. Though Dr. Ehrman typically does not declare himself in most of his books to be human, he does identify himself as an historian–the former being an assumed and unspoken genus, the latter a professed profession.
Are there, then, better ways of determining Jesus’s self-consciousness as it pertains to the divine than looking for unambiguous sayings?
There was actually no widespread expectation in Jesus’ time that the Messiah would be an incarnation or avatar of God himself. Most Jewish messianic expectations were much more this-worldly and practical. Generally, the Messiah was expected to:
-
Be a descendant of David through his father’s line
-
Rebuild the Temple
-
Gather the exiles of Israel
-
Defeat Israel’s enemies
-
Bring about peace
-
Lead all nations to worship the God of Abraham
-
Be born in Bethlehem
-
Enter Jerusalem riding on a donkey
-
Be preceded by Elijah
Some traditions also anticipated two messiahs—a priestly Messiah (of Aaron) and a royal Messiah (of Israel)—rather than a single divine figure.
In all of these expectations, messiahship was understood as a role or calling, not a claim about divine nature. Even texts like Psalms 2 and 110 seem to describe the Messiah being exalted or given titles such as “Son of God” after being enthroned, rather than possessing divine status by default. Luke appears to reflect this same way of thinking.
So within that historical setting, Jesus identifying himself as Messiah wouldn’t necessarily imply that he would also openly claim divinity, nor would his not doing so be especially surprising. It may simply be that the categories we’re asking him to speak in developed later than the context he was actually operating in.
In truth I think the historical Jesus’ personal psychology is completely occluded. In the NT texts he has been completely submerged into the roles and expectations of the NT writers.
I do think the writers of the NT thought Jesus was divine. But that doesn’t mean he was God. Their concept of divinity was much more fluid than our absolute binary. More of a continuum. Humans could become divine. Gods could become human. There were various levels of divinity. Even in Second Temple Judaism. Philo and Josephus believed Moses was made divine. In the books of Enoch, Enoch is made divine.
There were concepts of the Messiah that regarded this figure as comparable to the divine Son of Man. I won’t go into detail yet but follow the discussion in my thread on the Book of Enoch. I will get to precisely that question.
Stephen said
In truth I think the historical Jesus’ personal psychology is completely occluded. In the NT texts he has been completely submerged into the roles and expectations of the NT writers.
I do think the writers of the NT thought Jesus was divine. But that doesn’t mean he was God. Their concept of divinity was much more fluid than our absolute binary. More of a continuum. Humans could become divine. Gods could become human. There were various levels of divinity. Even in Second Temple Judaism. Philo and Josephus believed Moses was made divine. In the books of Enoch, Enoch is made divine.
There were concepts of the Messiah that regarded this figure as comparable to the divine Son of Man. I won’t go into detail yet but follow the discussion in my thread on the Book of Enoch. I will get to precisely that question.
The OP I introduced was not really about whether Jesus thought he was divine or not but whether the question could be answered by his sayings. My observation was that most people do not talk about “what they are”, that is, humans don’t daily talk about how they are human.
And so if Jesus did believe he was god, it is not surprising he never told people he was god.
Eratosthenes24601 said
There was actually no widespread expectation in Jesus’ time that the Messiah would be an incarnation or avatar of God himself. Most Jewish messianic expectations were much more this-worldly and practical. Generally, the Messiah was expected to:
Be a descendant of David through his father’s line
Rebuild the Temple
Gather the exiles of Israel
Defeat Israel’s enemies
Bring about peace
Lead all nations to worship the God of Abraham
Be born in Bethlehem
Enter Jerusalem riding on a donkey
Be preceded by Elijah
Some traditions also anticipated two messiahs—a priestly Messiah (of Aaron) and a royal Messiah (of Israel)—rather than a single divine figure.
In all of these expectations, messiahship was understood as a role or calling, not a claim about divine nature. Even texts like Psalms 2 and 110 seem to describe the Messiah being exalted or given titles such as “Son of God” after being enthroned, rather than possessing divine status by default. Luke appears to reflect this same way of thinking.
So within that historical setting, Jesus identifying himself as Messiah wouldn’t necessarily imply that he would also openly claim divinity, nor would his not doing so be especially surprising. It may simply be that the categories we’re asking him to speak in developed later than the context he was actually operating in.
hello. I must confess I’m not sure how your response contributes to my OP. It almost seems like you just cut and pasted a premade thesis. I’m sure that is not the case, but can you address the OP?
Note that part of the confusion about language suggesting some form of divinity for a Messiah is the point that in the broader Greco-Roman world, “divinity” was a broader category than godhood. It also seems like evolution of Judean religious ideas from a requirement of loyalty to “their” God in the general pantheon into monotheism also entailed understanding all characters in the “divine assembly” were not gods but rather some other kinds of divine inhabitants of the heavens.
As near as I can tell, without being able to read the source languages, there is often a touch of divinity about being an anointed one, whether priestly or king, without any suggestion of the anointed being God.
Another dimension of the question is that the question that is addressed must be a question that can be addressed.
The question cannot be whether Jesus thought he was God without expressing it to anybody, because the only way to know that would be divine inspiration. The question must be whether Jesus claimed to be God. And then the question cannot be whether he claimed to be God without the claim being passed on to posterity. And then the question cannot be restricted to what he can known to have said beyond reasonable doubt, since then there is no evidence and the argument is entirely an argument from silence.
So the question can only be whether there is a surviving claim to being God for which there is a reasonable case that can be made that the claim goes back to Jesus.
I must disagree with your final sentence; in it I see a major deficiency in “Jesus studies”, and a deficiency that seems only to plague “historians” of “Jesus studies”. Historians of Jesus studies (on all spectrums) completely ignore that fact that, whether divine or not, Jesus was in fact human. On that, everyone agrees. And that must mean that some basic patterns of psychology observed today can be applied to him. A rigid, narrow, nay, suffocatingly narrow fixation on “texts” when dealing with humans in any historical analysis inevitably distorts a reconstruction of the past of which they make part.
Jesus was human. Humans typically do not contemplate or speak about their humanity. Even if Jesus were divine, why should we expect him to talk about it?
Note, my OP was not claiming he was divine; it merely proposed that analyzing logions ascribed to him is not the way of determining what he thought.
Note, my OP was not claiming he was divine; it merely proposed that analyzing logions ascribed to him is not the way of determining what he thought.
The problem is that the texts are all we have. We have no access to Jesus’ personal psychology.
Also, when we say Jesus was God, what do we mean? Most believers now would mean Nicean Trinitarianism which is nowhere to be found in the NT. Nobody in the first century believed that Jesus was of one substance with God the Father because the concept hadn’t been invented yet. They could have easily believed that he had some kind of divine status however.
brown.connor4 said
I must disagree with your final sentence;
Oh no, you are disagreeing with all of my sentences!
I mean, fair enough, the likelihood that I have posted incorrect sentences somewhere on the forum would seem to be high, so why not here?
in it I see a major deficiency in “Jesus studies”, and a deficiency that seems only to plague “historians” of “Jesus studies”. Historians of Jesus studies (on all spectrums) completely ignore that fact that, whether divine or not, Jesus was in fact human. On that, everyone agrees. And that must mean that some basic patterns of psychology observed today can be applied to him. A rigid, narrow, nay, suffocatingly narrow fixation on “texts” when dealing with humans in any historical analysis inevitably distorts a reconstruction of the past of which they make part.
The argument I was making was not whether “applying basic patterns of psychology” is ever relevant in any historical analysis, but rather that the evidence at hand does not support making a reasonable argument along these lines for this particular case.
Jesus was human. Humans typically do not contemplate or speak about their humanity. Even if Jesus were divine, why should we expect him to talk about it?
Are you addressing whether Jesus said anything to indicate that he is God, or whether Jesus said anything to indicate that he is divine?
If the question being raised is whether Jesus privately believed himself to be God but kept it to himself, what conceivable historical evidence is going to be feasibly presented to support such a claim?
Note, my OP was not claiming he was divine; it merely proposed that analyzing logions ascribed to him is not the way of determining what he thought.
But what available evidence is there regarding “what he thought”, independent of “what he said”? In what sense is “what he thought” a question that can admit of historical analysis?
Robert said
brown.connor4 said
I have just gotten to this portion of Dr. Ehrman’s book, How Jesus became God? I do not intend to contribute to the question whether Jesus did or did not think himself divine; rather, I call into question the question itself. How might the question be answered? Dr. Ehrman’s approach is through analyzing the gospel sayings; that is, by establishing the original sayings of Jesus (which excludes almost all of John’s gospel) and noting that nowhere among these isolated sayings does Jesus declare himself unequivocally to be God. My problem with this whole approach is almost psychological. People in general do not frequently discuss their own classifications aloud. To ask whether Jesus thought he was god and proceed along Dr. Ehrman’s line of inquiry is like asking whether Dr. Ehrman believes he is human and then noting that nowhere in his books does he say, “I, Dr. Ehrman, declare myself human” and concluding the answer in the negative. (obviously if there is an exception, it only slightly injures my point.) …One should probably try to understand Bart’s treatment of this topic in context. Since some people believe that Jesus thought himself to be divine based on statements appearing in the gospel of John, the crux of Bart’s approach is presumably that such statements cannot be found in the earlier synoptic gospels, therefore the statements in the later gospel of John may be suspect. If Bart were to conclude that Jesus’ statements pertaining to his divinity in the gospel of John were likely historical, ie, that Jesus actually did make these and similar statements, perhaps even in the synoptic gospels, would he therefore conclude that Jesus was actually divine? No, of course not. Bart does not believe in God, so he does not think that Jesus was God.
I see I have failed at clarity. I am not interested here in determining whether Jesus is/was or not divine (pre and all existent) as that is not an historical question. I also stick exclusively to the synoptics when inquiring into the historical Jesus, so I bracket anything John puts in the mouth of Jesus (like the before Abraham I am).
What I am attempting to do is discourage the entire enterprise of seeking out Jesus’ self-understanding regarding divinity or humanity through what he says about himself. Scholars who argue that Jesus did not think he was divine because he never says it fail to observe the difference between silence and conspicuous silence. Arguments from the latter have strength. Arguments from the former are far weaker. I think in this case the argument that Jesus never says he is divine (sticking only to the synoptics) is an argument from mere (and not conspicuous) silence, on the grounds given in my OP. We can conclude nothing about his self-consciousness from his sayings.
Robert said
But leveling that critique on the scholarly discussion in the abstract may fail to see the specific context of the discussion. I suspect Bart would not disagree with you in the abstract, but that is not the discussion he is most likely engaging in here.
Im sorry but I regard your reply as almost meaningless. I place great stress on concrete clarity and i think normal speech is the best way to convey it.
Let’s consider your sentence: “but leveling that critique on the scholarly discussion in the abstract may fail…”
This to me sounds like jargon. When do you ever talk like that in the real world?
The only responses to my OP are:
1) No, you are wrong, If Jesus thought he was God he would have said so. but he didn’t, so he didn’t think he was god.
2) Yes, I see your point: even if Jesus thought he was God he would not have said so because he was also human and humans don’t typically talk about what they are.
those are the only options.
So I return to my conclusion:
Dr. Ehrman is interested in history. History involves humans. If it is true that the human Jesus was also god but followed human patterns, it is not surprising he never talked about himself being god, anymore than he talked about having two legs. Ergo, the fact that Jesus never said he was god tells us nothing about what he thought. Any historian that points out, “Jesus never said he was god” demonstrates a failure to understand human psychology.
The only responses to my OP are:
1) No, you are wrong, If Jesus thought he was God he would have said so. but he didn’t, so he didn’t think he was god.
2) Yes, I see your point: even if Jesus thought he was God he would not have said so because he was also human and humans don’t typically talk about what they are.
those are the only options.
Well, my response would be that we have no idea of the historical Jesus’ self-conception one way or another. In his milieu the idea of a human being sharing the same substance as God the Father, i.e., NIcene Trinitarianism, would have been considered blasphemous if not simply incomprehensible. It is possible that Jesus thought he had some special role to play in the coming Kingdom. There were conceptions of the Messiah that he could have satisfied.
What we can say is that his followers considered him divine in some sense. Mark thinks he was made divine at his Baptism. Matthew and Luke think he was divine from birth. John – and Paul – think Jesus was the incarnation of a pre-existent divine being. All these conceptions of divinity sit comfortably within Second Temple Judaism.
Stephen said
Well, my response would be that we have no idea of the historical Jesus’ self-conception one way or another.
And even if some or many of his contemporaries did, there wouldn’t be enough surviving evidence to pin down what they claimed that he thought. After all, we have no direct contemporaneous evidence, and scanty evidence that can be pinned down to the same century as his contemporaries.
…
What we can say is that his followers considered him divine in some sense. Mark thinks he was made divine at his Baptism. Matthew and Luke think he was divine from birth. John – and Paul – think Jesus was the incarnation of a pre-existent divine being. All these conceptions of divinity sit comfortably within Second Temple Judaism.
Yes … the plausible successors in Pella of some of his followers from the expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem are not indicted by heresiologists of saying Jesus is not divine at all, but rather of not making him of the same substance as God the Father and placing the timing of his divinity too late. Even the extra-imperial Christian faith in Arabia that was adopted into Islam has Isa as not simply the penultimate prophet before the seal of the prophets (SAW), but also ascended directly to heaven, to return on the day of resurrection.
f
brown.connor4 said
I have just gotten to this portion of Dr. Ehrman’s book, How Jesus became God? I do not intend to contribute to the question whether Jesus did or did not think himself divine; rather, I call into question the question itself. How might the question be answered? Dr. Ehrman’s approach is through analyzing the gospel sayings; that is, by establishing the original sayings of Jesus (which excludes almost all of John’s gospel) and noting that nowhere among these isolated sayings does Jesus declare himself unequivocally to be God. My problem with this whole approach is almost psychological. People in general do not frequently discuss their own classifications aloud. To ask whether Jesus thought he was god and proceed along Dr. Ehrman’s line of inquiry is like asking whether Dr. Ehrman believes he is human and then noting that nowhere in his books does he say, “I, Dr. Ehrman, declare myself human” and concluding the answer in the negative. (obviously if there is an exception, it only slightly injures my point.) Or if the genus human is too broad, let us take the more unique attribute of genius. The word Einstein is almost synonymous with the adjective genius. But Einstein did not go around calling himself genius; most geniuses don’t. they are too busy doing genius things and thinking genius thoughts. It is we, the hoi polloi, who so label them by observing their genius feats and reading the kinds of things that only a geniuses think. It is thus not surprising to me that though his followers came to declare him God, he never did.
One might object by pointing out that Jesus did in fact identify himself as something, namely, Messiah. If he felt free to publicize that, then, assuming he thought himself divine, why would he not make that public as well? But Messiahship and divinity are not exact parallels. The first entails a role, a function; deity is a status. Though Dr. Ehrman typically does not declare himself in most of his books to be human, he does identify himself as an historian–the former being an assumed and unspoken genus, the latter a professed profession.
Are there, then, better ways of determining Jesus’s self-consciousness as it pertains to the divine than looking for unambiguous sayings?
I have read all of the responses so far and the result is almost comical. My argument is that if even a person thought he was divine he probably, based on patterns of human behavior, would not talk about his divinity, unless he were also crazy. Every response has been on texts, as if texts are more important than real people.
I am almost tempted to post another OP with the question, Did Jesus poop? and watch as everyone analyzes every text from Genesis to 4 Ezra and decide that “historically, it cannot be determined whether Jesus pooped or not.”
I have read all of the responses so far and the result is almost comical. My argument is that if even a person thought he was divine he probably, based on patterns of human behavior, would not talk about his divinity, unless he were also crazy. Every response has been on texts, as if texts are more important than real people.
You don’t get it. THE ONLY ACCESS WE HAVE TO THE FIGURE OF JESUS IS THROUGH THE TEXTS.
You imagine you can penetrate Jesus’ personal psychology? It was the mainstream viewpoint of Hellenistic intellectuals of the first century that the stars were intelligent divine beings. (That was the smart people. Who knows what the average guy thought.) According to the gospels Jesus, like everyone else, believed that sickness was caused not by germs or viruses but by demons. Jesus, the apocalyptic prophet and son of a day laborer, apparently believed he was selected by God to have a special role in His Kingdom to be established next Tues after lunch. You really imagine you can penetrate the psychology of a person living in such a different conceptual universe?
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
1 Guest(s)