Damian King, I appreciate your points. I disagree on a couple of things, but if you are patient enough to read to the end, I may end up supporting your case! First, I’m not sure that the fact that Daniel views The Son of Man as pre-existing (and I think you’re right about that) would mean that Mark, or others, would think that Jesus was pre-existing. I think there’s evidence from scripture (which I’m way too lazy to look up) that people then could believe that prophecies and mythological stories could bear out in history and in the lives of real people without needing point-for-point correspondence. In other words, Mark might believe Jesus is Daniel’s “Son of Man” without necessarily also believing as Daniel asserts that Jesus is therefore pre-existing.
But second, remember Bart’s fascinating point in How Jesus Became God, that Paul may have believed Jesus was an angel walking on earth. If that’s true it illustrates that Jewish Christians could have maintained Jesus had some kind of divinity, may even have viewed him as pre-existent, WITHOUT believing Jesus was actually God. It was not uncommon in the pre-Christian era for Jews to believe that The Son of Man was possibly Michael or another angel. The Essenes, for instance, believed that Michael would lead them against the Kittim, the Romans. This raises the other possibility, which is that people could have mixed their metaphors, viewing a messianic figure (and hence Jesus) as a little bit of Daniel’s Son of Man, a little bit of the Essene Michael or Teacher of Righteousness, and so on.
But I have a caveat in all this. The final point I’ll make concerns Jesus’ testimony before the Sanhedrin. The question which the chief priest puts is (Mark 14: 51-2): “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” He is not asking if Jesus is God, but some other level of divine being. That aligns with what I’ve been saying Mark thinks all along: Jesus could be a divine being, but not God.
But Jesus’ response may put the lie to my whole line of argument. ‘I am,” he says. it’s the first and only I AM statement in Mark. Was Jesus actually asserting he was God? maybe not. But what really complicates matters is the way the other synoptics play out the same scene. “You have said so,” he says in Matthew 26: 64; and in Luke 22:70 he replies, “You say that I am.” Since both are using Mark as a source, the fact that they moderate Jesus’ self-assertion is striking, and suggests that they were uncomfortable with the implications of “I am”–i.e., that Jesus was claiming to be God! So of course if that’s right, then either Mark thought him to be God, or he thought it was important to make sure the reader understood it as a distinct possibility–my own read of Mark is that he is overall less doctrinaire than the other Gospelers and is happy to leave us with some choices we have to make for ourselves about the nature of Jesus.
First of all, ritschfritz, Mark unquestionably thought Jesus was the Messiah, and in light of Jesus’ perceived resurrection, Christians invested that word with a certain divine aura, even if none of them believed at this time that this meant Jesus was himself God. Just being chosen as the Messiah could be taken to mean Jesus had divine aspects to his nature, but at least as Mark sees it, these are powers he was invested with as an adult due to his faith. Just as Moses and Elijah (both referred to in Mark’s gospel) were believed to be able to wield extraordinary powers through God, but not through any innate divine quality.
The Messiah could certainly be described as a Son of God in the Jewish tradition (a term of respect for a holy man)–and it’s hard to know why the Sanhedrin would be asking him if he were the begotten Son of God, since there were no Jews who believed that of the Messiah.
Mark was an adoptionist. He believed Jesus became God’s son at his baptism, and that is what he’s referring to in this exchange–how the Sanhedrin has become aware of this is hard to determine, though of course assuming the baptism story has some basis in reality, Jesus would have had to have told someone about the revelation he had, which Mark depicts as a purely internal vision that no one else present was aware of. The reader of the gospel has presumably read the baptism scene first, and knows what is being referred to in the question.
Obviously Mark didn’t have a transcript of Jesus’ testimony to the Sanhedrin (there wouldn’t have been any transcript), and we should assume that dialogue is not based on eyewitness testimony, firsthand or otherwise. Mark may well have been making use of an earlier written account of Jesus’ trial and execution, that has not survived, which could have featured dialogue created for the purpose of emphasizing Jesus’ divine nature, but again, divine doesn’t mean “One in being with the Father” in this context. People who assume this are projecting much later beliefs about Jesus backwards in time.
Did Mark see Jesus as divine? Quite possibly, but as Bart has pointed out, Roman emperors could be seen as divine after their deaths. It was not such a unique distinction as one might think. The line between human and divine was porous. But from Mark’s POV, the miracle is that someone born of a woman in the normal fashion was able to be elevated higher through nothing more than exceptional faith and goodness. He wasn’t born with it–he earned it. (The hard way.)
Robert said
ritschfritz said
… But Jesus’ response may put the lie to my whole line of argument. ‘I am,” he says. it’s the first and only I AM statement in Mark. Was Jesus actually asserting he was God? maybe not. …
I don’t disagree with your point, but note that Mark also uses the exact same ‘I am’ phrase (ἐγώ εἰμι ego eimi) in Mk 6,50 and 13,6:
Ha, that’s what I get for writing on the spur of the moment without double-checking facts. That one jumps out at me because one could argue that Jesus is claiming divinity at exactly the wrong time to bring it up! thanks for reminding me of the other “I am” statements.
godspell said
Mark was an adoptionist. He believed Jesus became God’s son at his baptism, and that is what he’s referring to in this exchange–how the Sanhedrin has become aware of this is hard to determine, though of course assuming the baptism story has some basis in reality, Jesus would have had to have told someone about the revelation he had, which Mark depicts as a purely internal vision that no one else present was aware of. The reader of the gospel has presumably read the baptism scene first, and knows what is being referred to in the question.
Agreed. and “earned it–the hard way”–well put. That Adoptionist perspective lends power to the author of Hebrews as s/he encourages Jewish Christians to face up to persecution the way Jesus does in the Garden of Gethsemane. Mark’s Jesus is the one I relate to the best.
It’s always easier to relate to a fellow mortal than a god.
That’s why the Greeks and Romans liked to tell stories of gods who took on human form, and had very human foibles.
But Jews couldn’t do that–their God was perfect (maybe a bit grouchy at times), and had no fellow deities to hobnob and canoodle with.
So the Jewish approach was to make men more like gods, but never to see them as God in the highest sense. There can be only one God, one Father, one Creator of all. But we can all aspire to be more godly, to come close to the one true God’s perfection, even though we shall always fall short. As Jesus fell short. Not nearly as far short as most of us. Or so you feel when you read Mark’s gospel.
And you know Mark’s Jesus knows this about himself. “Why do you call me good?” Because no truly good person ever sees him or herself as such, let alone brags about it. The Pharisee in the front of the synagogue tells God how good he is. The Publican at the back begs forgiveness for his sins. And he is the one found worthy in God’s eyes.
ritschfritz said
But Jesus’ response may put the lie to my whole line of argument. ‘I am,” he says. it’s the first and only I AM statement in Mark. Was Jesus actually asserting he was God? maybe not. But what really complicates matters is the way the other synoptics play out the same scene. “You have said so,” he says in Matthew 26: 64; and in Luke 22:70 he replies, “You say that I am.” Since both are using Mark as a source, the fact that they moderate Jesus’ self-assertion is striking, and suggests that they were uncomfortable with the implications of “I am”–i.e., that Jesus was claiming to be God! So of course if that’s right, then either Mark thought him to be God, or he thought it was important to make sure the reader understood it as a distinct possibility–my own read of Mark is that he is overall less doctrinaire than the other Gospelers and is happy to leave us with some choices we have to make for ourselves about the nature of Jesus.
Yes this is striking and would suggest they were uncomfortable with the implications of “I am”. Later christian writers having trouble with an earlier writer’s high christology would be very strange.
However if we order the gospels as Matthew > Luke > Mark the progression is understandable and we run into no difficulties.
Matthew – “You have said so”
Luke – “You say that I am”
Mark – “I am”
It’s a lower Christology for Jesus say he’s the adopted Son of God and Messiah. And any intelligent reader knows that’s what Jesus is saying, because it’s made very clear earlier in the story. Not a long book. Give Mark credit for remembering how it began.
Matthew and Luke have the Virgin Birth. Mark doesn’t. Mark didn’t believe Jesus was God’s son until God proclaimed him as such–as an adult. Matthew and Luke believe he was God’s son from the moment of conception. John believes he was a pre-existent divine being briefly clothed in human flesh. Mark believes he was a good man, born the same way everybody else gets born, who ascended to something higher through faith. That is the lowest Christology on offer in the New Testament. Paul’s is higher, but Paul never met Jesus, and probably didn’t believe in the Virgin Birth (since like John, he considers it irrelevant how a pre-existent divine being achieves corporeal form).
Every early Christian believes Jesus is Messiah (that’s what ‘Christian’ means). They disagree about the interpretation of Messiah. Nothing the least bit shocking that Jesus would say he was what everybody reading Mark already knew him to to be. So why would Matthew and Luke have him refuse to say so when interrogated?
Mark’s Christology is lower, and that’s indisputable. However, his Jesus is more plainspoken than Matthew and Luke’s, who both have Jesus responding with some version of “You say so.” Meaning they both had the same source, different from Mark’s (possibly Q). And given the much tenser political atmosphere existing at the later time they wrote their gospels, they didn’t want Jesus to be openly confrontational with the authorities.
Honestly, from the POV of the Romans, it didn’t matter much whether Jesus said he was the begotten son of God or not. To pagans there was nothing controversial about that (whereas it would be controversial among Jewish converts to Christianity, who would have been more influential at the earlier time Mark wrote).
But for him to openly claim earthly authority would be justifying claims that Christianity was a seditious Jewish cult trying to overthrow Rome. They wanted to avoid crossing that line. Hence “Thou sayest.” Jesus being Jesuitical, one might say. 😉
You’ll say something meaningless in response. I’ll ignore it. Game. Set. Match.
Divine in a very limited sense, and not born divine–made divine.
For centures after his death, Jesus’ divinity was debated by Christians–some believed he was 100% divine, others 100% human–the compromise was to say he was 100% divine and human at the same time. Which aside from being mathematically impossible, is not at all what any of the gospel authors thought. Mark clearly thinks of him as a man, who has flaws and knows it. Who is very aware he is not God the Father (“Why do you call me good? Only God is good.”) But the divine spirit is there within him–as it can be for anyone with faith. Mark’s Jesus tells everyone they can do the same miracles as him–and greater feats yet–if they only have faith.
Bart has not said Mark thought Jesus was God, and has merely acknowleged the possibility Mark thought Jesus was divine in some sense, but as he points out, it was a widespread idea in that time that humans could become divine, as Emperors did after their deaths. In this sense, Mark might very well have considered Moses and Elijah divine beings, since they confer with Jesus on a mountaintop, and he is being portrayed as their successor on earth. Moses controlled the elements, Elijah raised the dead. How are they less divine than Jesus? Only in that Jesus returned from the dead in bodily form before ascending to heaven, where (as Mark believes) he will return from to initiate the Kingdom very soon.
Damian, please note, Mark’s Jesus does not identify faith in him as the basis for someone gaining power. Faith in God alone. John believes Jesus is a fully divine being, and therefore is it appropriate to have faith in him as one would have in God the Father.
But Mark’s Jesus says All things are possible to him that believeth.
Matthew made certain things explicit that are merely implicit in Mark, but powerfully and pervasively implicit. The healed heal themselves, according to Jesus. Jesus himself can work no miracles around those who disbelieve. Faith in God the Father is the only source of power. Jesus himself has none. As Mark sees it.
I already dealt with all these. You can refer back to the quotes I gave from Mark, where clearly Mark understands Jesus to be the pre-existent Son of Man, to be able to do miracles that only God can, and actually uses the term Lord and God applied to Yahweh in Isaiah 40 to refer to Jesus. Since you refused to ever rebut this, my points still stand
Elijah could raise the dead, and ascended bodily into heaven in front of witnesses. Moses could bring about plagues and part the sea. How can you argue Jesus did anything greater than that?
And why, when dying on the cross, does Jesus say “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Now Bart thinks it’s unlikely anyone heard him say that because they’d all run away, and it would have been impossible to hear him from a safe distance. But that means Mark has Jesus referring to God as a separate being from himself–and in despair, even if he is quoting from scripture. He’s still saying he’s not God, and he’s afraid and in pain.
It makes no sense for Jesus to say “Myself, myself, why have I forsaken myself?”
Mark’s Jesus is a human being of great faith, which gives him great power–but when in Nazareth, his power fails him, and it seems to fail him again on the cross. (One can argue it different ways, and early Christians argued it innumerable ways, up to and including the gnostic notion that Christ was a separate being from Jesus, and abandoned him on the cross–you must recognize early Christians had many more differences of opinion than later ones, when there was active suppression of ‘heresy’ and Christians began to persecute other Christians.)
If you’re going to invoke the Old Testament, don’t invoke it selectively. Isaiah wasn’t referring to Jesus, and it’s hardly a proven fact he was referring to a pre-existent divine being. Because you’re determined to see only the evidence that backs up your religious dogma, you aren’t capable of being objective–or even accurate.
” I gave from Mark, where clearly Mark understands Jesus to be the pre-existent Son of Man, to be able to do miracles that only God can,”
when god in the ot does miracles, he uses things between himself and the object.
for example,when he said “let there be light” who did it say “let there be light” too?
ot does not think that MATERIAL had an origin, ot thinks that material always existed with yhwh.
there is also a tree which gives ETERNAL life.
i guess jesus and the tree are identical?
water seems to have always existed with yhwh. so when you say “only god can” you do not ask “HOW” god does it?
“and actually uses the term Lord and God applied to Yahweh in Isaiah 40 to refer to Jesus.”
i thought the greek word for “lord” can refer to god, angels and humans?
to be able to do miracles that only God can
On the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the Lord; and he said in the sight of Israel,
“Sun, stand still at Gibeon,
and Moon, in the valley of Aijalon.”
13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped,
until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.
you will say god did it through joshua, but nobody saw god, they saw a man speaking to the sun.
And of course Jesus never made any city walls fall down with trumpet blasts.
And are we really scoring this on the basis of who did bigger miracles in made-up stories?
The real difference is that Jesus was being written about a generation or two after his death, and the OT bigwigs are so heavily mythologized we can’t even be sure any of them existed. There was no living memory of any of these events when the OT texts were written, and no reason to think any of them happened, though there were certainly people and events that influenced the stories being told.
If Jesus is still important–and he is–it’s not for doing magic tricks. And it’s not for the intact state of his mom’s hymen, either. (Based on some medical texts I’ve read, the hymen itself may be fairly mythical).
Damian King said
I already dealt with all these. You can refer back to the quotes I gave from Mark, where clearly Mark understands Jesus to be the pre-existent Son of Man. . . . . . . my points still stand
Damian,
you mentioned multiple times previously that Mark saw Jesus as pre-existent Son of man
But I don’t recall your your argument to the pre-existent part
Can you repeat that part ?
I do not see anyone believing Jesus was pre-existent at the time Mark was thought to be written
None of the synoptic authors believed that. I do agree with Bart that Paul saw Jesus as an angel in the body of a man, which would make him pre-existent. Paul obviously wrote before Mark. Paul never explains how this fleshy incarnation of a divine being happened, and I don’t think he believed in the Virgin Birth, but of course once you’re talking about stuff like this, there are no rational explanations, and as a person of faith, you shouldn’t need any. You believe what you believe, explanations be damned. Paul only encountered Jesus as a vision, and the real man always came second to that vision with him.
Paul’s ideas would become hugely influential among all Christians (not just those he had himself converted), but there were no collected editions of his epistles at the time period the gospels were written. I think he got out ahead of the curve, and Christianity caught up with him over time, as memories of the living Jesus got fainter and fainter. But at the time Mark wrote, there were probably still people who had known Jesus, and certainly many who had known his original followers.
godspell said
It’s a lower Christology for Jesus say he’s the adopted Son of God and Messiah. And any intelligent reader knows that’s what Jesus is saying, because it’s made very clear earlier in the story. Not a long book. Give Mark credit for remembering how it began.Matthew and Luke have the Virgin Birth. Mark doesn’t. Mark didn’t believe Jesus was God’s son until God proclaimed him as such–as an adult. Matthew and Luke believe he was God’s son from the moment of conception. John believes he was a pre-existent divine being briefly clothed in human flesh. Mark believes he was a good man, born the same way everybody else gets born, who ascended to something higher through faith. That is the lowest Christology on offer in the New Testament. Paul’s is higher, but Paul never met Jesus, and probably didn’t believe in the Virgin Birth (since like John, he considers it irrelevant how a pre-existent divine being achieves corporeal form).
Every early Christian believes Jesus is Messiah (that’s what ‘Christian’ means). They disagree about the interpretation of Messiah. Nothing the least bit shocking that Jesus would say he was what everybody reading Mark already knew him to to be. So why would Matthew and Luke have him refuse to say so when interrogated?
Mark’s Christology is lower, and that’s indisputable. However, his Jesus is more plainspoken than Matthew and Luke’s, who both have Jesus responding with some version of “You say so.” Meaning they both had the same source, different from Mark’s (possibly Q). And given the much tenser political atmosphere existing at the later time they wrote their gospels, they didn’t want Jesus to be openly confrontational with the authorities.
Honestly, from the POV of the Romans, it didn’t matter much whether Jesus said he was the begotten son of God or not. To pagans there was nothing controversial about that (whereas it would be controversial among Jewish converts to Christianity, who would have been more influential at the earlier time Mark wrote).
But for him to openly claim earthly authority would be justifying claims that Christianity was a seditious Jewish cult trying to overthrow Rome. They wanted to avoid crossing that line. Hence “Thou sayest.” Jesus being Jesuitical, one might say. 😉
You’ll say something meaningless in response. I’ll ignore it. Game. Set. Match.
Being the adopted son of god certainly would be a lower christology but mark never teaches this.
If we say Paul and John think it irrelevant how a pre-existed divine being achieves corporeal form we should be open to the possibility that Mark also thinks this way. After all Mark believes Jesus to be the son of god and makes no mention of him having an earthly father despite mentioning his earthly mother, brothers and sisters.
Mark is supposed to be the originator of the messianic secret who ends his gospel with the women not telling anyone of his resurrection – so his simple pronouncement of “I am” when asked if he’s the messiah lacks coherency. Much more coherent with the messianic secret is his response of “you have said so” in Matthew.
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