deity of christ

What You Might’ve Missed About the Mount of Transfiguration

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Does John’s Gospel give us a much higher view of Jesus than what we find in Matthew, Mark and Luke? Bart Ehrman certainly thinks so. He says:  If Jesus went around Galilee proclaiming himself to be a divine being sent from God…could anything else that he might say be so breath-taking and thunderously important? And yet none of these earlier sources says any such thing about him. Did they (all of them!) just decide not to mention the one thing that was most significant about Jesus? Almost certainly the divine self-claims in John are not historical. How Jesus Became God p 125 In other places, Ehrman admits that the Synoptic Gospels don’t depict Jesus as … Read more

9 Historical Facts About Jesus’ Brother James That Provide Evidence for Christianity

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Do you think that you could convince one of your siblings into believing that you’re the Son of God? Unless they were three years old, it would probably be a tough sell. After all, they’ve seen how you keep your room. So it’s a pretty amazing historical fact that Jesus’ brother James, who probably wore Jesus’ hand-me-downs, later as an adult converted to Christianity. And we know that he was sincere about his belief because he died for it. James’ martyrdom wasn’t just recorded in Christian sources (Hegesippus) but by the 1st-century Jewish historian Josephus. In his book Antiquities of the Jews 20.200, Josephus wrote: “But this younger Ananus, who, as we told you already, took … Read more

18 Passages From Mark’s Gospel That Prove That Mark Had a High Christology

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Biblical critics like Bart Ehrman say that the deity of Christ was a later invention that developed near the end of the first century. Bart and others of his ilk say that Mark, the earliest gospel, has a lower view of Jesus than John, who says he’s the pre-existent Word made Flesh. Quoting Bart: “If Jesus went around Galilee proclaiming himself to be a divine being sent from God…could anything else that he say be so breath-taking and thunderously important? And yet none of the earlier sources (read: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) says any such thing about him. Did they (all of them!) just decide not to mention the one thing that was most significant … Read more

Jesus Never Explicitly Said, “I’m God”. Did He Really Need To?

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“Ahem! Excuse me! May I have your attention, please! I just thought it would be important for you all to know that I’m God. You should probably start worshipping me now since I’m the one who is sustaining your every breath.” — Things Jesus Never said. Recently I was talking to a Muslim. His hang-up was that Jesus never explicitly said: “I am God”. Since he never said that, why did Christians come to believe that he was God? I’m sure you’ve heard something like this before. Jesus Never Explicitly Said I’m God It’s true to say that Jesus never said the words “I am God”. But does someone have to come out and say … Read more

Is Jesus Alive?