{"id":89931,"date":"2024-09-30T07:00:24","date_gmt":"2024-09-30T12:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/?p=89931"},"modified":"2024-09-27T11:16:23","modified_gmt":"2024-09-27T16:16:23","slug":"two-reasons-skeptics-believe-jesus-is-not-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/two-reasons-skeptics-believe-jesus-is-not-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Reasons Skeptics Believe Jesus is not God"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of the most important features of Christian faith is accepting that Jesus is God. Christians are in trouble, then, if Jesus never made such a claim of himself! Yet many have argued that this is exactly the case: Jesus never claimed to be God, they say, and his divinity is an invention of the Christian church. Is this true?<\/span><\/p>

I have found that there are two main reasons why people think Jesus never claimed to be God. Let\u2019s take a look!<\/span><\/p>

Jesus never said the exact phrase, \u201cI am God\u201d<\/b><\/p>

Some people believe Jesus never claimed to be God because, in reading the Gospels of Jesus, they simply don\u2019t see Jesus saying \u201cI am God\u201d (or something along those lines). While it\u2019s true that the Gospels never quote Jesus saying, \u201cI am God,\u201d the Gospels still include statements from Jesus that clearly identify him with God. Examples include \u201cThe Father and I are one\u201d (John 10:30) and \u201cAnyone who has seen me has seen the Father\u201d (John 14:9). I work through many more verses In one of my early YouTube videos, \u201c<\/span>Did Jesus really Say He was God?<\/span><\/a>\u201d While it\u2019s always possible to reinterpret or raise skepticism over the meaning of any statement, <\/span>the most natural and common-sense understanding of these quotations is that Jesus is claiming to be God.<\/b><\/p>

Related: Do We \u201cGet\u201d Jesus?<\/span><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>

The Gospel of John is not reliable<\/b><\/p>

The second reason given to deny Jesus\u2019s claim to divinity is this: to challenge the historical reliability of the Gospel of John. It\u2019s well understood that John has the clearest examples of Jesus claiming to be God, and it was (probably) also the latest of the four Gospels written. So, many conclude that Jesus never claimed to be God, yet legend developed over time that he did. The earliest Gospels\u2014Matthew, Mark, and Luke\u2014did not include this legend because not enough time had passed. But John, which came later, has the legendary stuff. Notice how this argument admits that John presents Jesus as God, but it denies that John is a good source to use.<\/span><\/p>

This second approach is\u00a0 a more thoughtful and sophisticated argument than the first. However, it has some big challenges:<\/span><\/p>

1. Although it is difficult to date the Gospel of John, the more liberal, late estimates are around 100 AD. This is, at most, about 40 years after the earliest Gospels were written. Are we really saying such a crazy legend of Jesus developed in the 40 years between John and the other Gospels? This is hardly enough time for legend to develop. Normally, legends develop after centuries of time, and the original eyewitness of the event, their children, and their<\/span><\/i> children, have long passed away. <\/span><\/b><\/b>In the case of the Gospel of John, many of the original eyewitnesses of Jesus could have still been around when the book was written!<\/b><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Watch: Can Jesus be fully God and fully man?<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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2.The ancient writer Irenaeus knew Polycarp, who knew John (a disciple and eyewitness of Jesus). Irenaeus informs us that John wrote the Gospel of John (Writing to Florinus H.E. 5.20.5\u20136). Given how John dedicated his career to spreading the message of Jesus, his memory would have stayed fresh, and it\u2019s unlikely that he would have allowed such a massive mistake to slip into his Gospel in multiple places.<\/p>

3. Even if we don\u2019t use the Gospel of John, there are still clues that Jesus saw himself as God in the other Gospels, which came earlier.<\/p>