Program 3: Did Jesus Ever Consider Himself to be Deity? Did Jesus Designate Himself as the Son of Man or the Son of God?

Introduction

Dr. John Ankerberg: The search for the historical Jesus is a hot topic in both popular and academic circles today and has drawn a lot of attention from national magazines, such as Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report. Further, the media has given an undue amount of attention to the outlandish statements of the Jesus Seminar, a self-selected liberal group representing a very small percentage of New Testament scholarship. Today we will address the questions surrounding the debate over the historical Jesus and show there are a significant number of historical facts about Jesus in secular and non-New Testament sources which prove that the Jesus of history is the same Jesus of the Christian faith.

My guest is world-class philosopher Dr. Gary Habermas, author of the book, The Historical Jesus and about twenty other volumes. He received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University. Dr. Habermas is chairman of the Department of Philosophy at Liberty University and has written more than 100 articles, mostly on the life of Jesus, which have appeared in scholarly journals and elsewhere. Join us for this edition of The John Ankerberg Show and learn why Jesus is one of the most historically verified lives of ancient times.

Ankerberg: Welcome. Do you think Jesus ever considered himself to be God? The handful of liberal scholars in the Jesus Seminar claim that Jesus never said he was God. Further, they claim that later Christians deliberately excluded other books, other gospels, which pictured Jesus differently than the books which are now part of the New Testament canon. As you’ll hear in this program, the Jesus Seminar is wrong on both points.

Well, let’s begin with the statement, “Jesus claimed to be God.” Can Christians use the Jesus Seminar’s own critical methodology to examine the evidence, and still prove that Jesus did claim to be God? The answer is, “Yes.” Dr. Gary Habermas, a philosopher and historian, has written over 100 articles of various sorts for scholarly journals, many of these on the Historical Jesus. As a Christian, there are many reasons that have led him to accept all of the content in the New Testament books as true and authoritative. But he knows non-Christian scholars do not believe the same way. So he starts with the snippets of material in the New Testament that they do accept as authoritative and historically reliable and uses that material to prove that Jesus did refer to himself as God.

Now, Dr. Habermas argues that no matter which source, which stratum New Testament critics turn to in the Gospels, in all five of them you’ll find that Jesus designates himself as Son of Man which, as you’ll see, is a very lofty reference according to Daniel 7:13-14. So listen as Dr. Habermas uses the critics’ own arguments to show Jesus did claim to be Deity.

Habermas: We ended the last program by mentioning the critical comeback that seemed obvious enough that we need to provide an answer. That objection went something like this: “Don’t take it for granted that the red letter editions of the New Testament are exactly what Jesus said. How do you know that Jesus actually proclaimed what Mark recorded, or that Matthew, Luke, or John got it right when each of them cited Jesus’ teachings?”

Let me try a popular analogy for comparison. When fans and critics alike take a sort of Monday morning quarterback approach to the important football games of the previous day, it might sound something like this. They may gather on Monday morning for coffee or in the barber shop and recast yesterday’s football game in their own image. “You know, if the coach had simply done this instead of that, we would have won the game.” “Sure the quarterback gained some yards when he sprinted down the field, but if he would have just stayed in the pocket, like he should have done, he wouldn’t have gotten injured. He gained the yards but lost the trophy. Now we’re out of the playoffs for sure.”

In a way, this seems close to what a lot of critics say. At least since Bultmann, the gospel writers are regularly said to be placing many words and teachings into Jesus’ mouth, but after his crucifixion rather than before. They are utilizing their post- Easter, Monday morning renditions of how these teachings came about. They are Monday-morning quarterbacking Jesus’ teachings. But just like Monday’s football plays never happened on the field, neither did those words come out of Jesus’ mouth prior to the crucifixion. Similarly, how do we know the Son of Man is not just an added teaching?

Now, I provided a couple of arguments during the last program that Jesus claimed to be both the Son of Man and the Son of God. Let’s take a look at a couple of these points, doing so according to critical methodology. What if we employed a method utilizing the lowest common denominator, like that which the more critical scholars do. To them, the New Testament texts are simply books of ancient literature. Okay, so critics often assume that the gospels, some of the epistles, and other New Testament writings are simply unreliable. Let’s think about this like the critics do and let’s initially address the issue, “Did Jesus ever claim to be the Son of Man?” What critical indications do we have?

Two important criteria of authenticity, as they are termed by the critical scholars themselves, are both fulfilled by the Son of Man sayings in the gospels. The first one is multiple attestation: if you have a teaching of Jesus that is found in more than one independent source, you have a pretty good idea that this may be an authentic statement. In fact, the Jesus Seminar themselves list that criterion in the beginning of their book entitled The Five Gospels, that rejects over 80% of the so- called red-letter sayings of Jesus. They state that just two independent sources increases the odds of authenticity.

What about the teaching that Jesus was the Son of Man? Not only is it Jesus’ favorite self-designation, according to the gospels, but it is found in all five of what are often termed the traditional gospel sources or strata! These traditional gospel sources, by the way, are the Gospel of Mark; “M”–the special material that Matthew includes that none of the others include; “L”–the special material that Luke has alone; the Gospel of John; and this enigmatic “sayings document” that critical scholars call “Q,” which is their name for the verses that are contained in both Matthew and Luke, but which are not found in Mark. So we have five independent sources of material and guess what? The Son of Man teaching appears in all five strata! So, five out of five sources is what some scholars might call overkill—it would seem to be quite clear that Jesus actually utilized this title for himself.

But could the Christian church have made it up and Monday morning quarterbacked it into Jesus’ mouth like Monday’s football play that never happened? Perhaps the Son of Man was simply the most popular title for Jesus when the gospels were written, decades later, so that they could add it back into Jesus’ mouth after the fact? We’ll check that out.

But then there is the second criterion, called “the criterion of dissimilarity.” Some think that it is the most stringent test of all. If a teaching of Jesus was not taken from the Jews, and if the same teaching was not found in the early Church, it is probably uniquely authentic to Jesus himself. This is really quite a severe test, for it borders on asserting that we cannot be sure that a saying was actually the teaching of Jesus if either the Jews (which he, of course, was one!) or the early Christians (his own followers!) taught the same thing!

Well, didn’t the Jews have a concept of the Son of Man at about Jesus’ time?

Sure they did, but the non-Christian Jews of the first century would never have applied the title to Jesus.

Then what about the early Church? Isn’t this supposed to be a great example of Monday morning quarterbacking? Christians read their favorite designation back into the mouth of Jesus, so that means that it was the favorite designation for Jesus when the gospels are written decades after the crucifixion. But it clearly does not work! It doesn’t work because Jesus is never once called the Son of Man in any of the New Testament epistles! In fact, he’s not called the Son of Man anywhere outside the gospels except one place (Acts 7), and there it’s talking about Stephen looking up before he was martyred and seeing the heavenly, exalted Son of Man! In fact, the text says that Stephen saw him standing on the right hand of God.

So, the earthly Son of Man, the earthly Jesus, is never called the Son of Man anywhere else outside the gospels and only on the lips of Jesus inside the gospels, except in one instance in John 12:34 where the crowd simply uses Jesus’ own phrase and asked him who was the son of man? So it’s a title distinctly on the lips of Jesus alone. In other words–let me unpack this just a little bit more–it couldn’t be a Monday morning teaching read back into the words of the human Jesus because then it would be the church’s favorite title for him at that time, but it’s not found in the early church except in Stephen’s vision!

So the conclusion here, first of all, is that the title is very impressively found in all five layers of the gospel sources or strata, therefore it far more likely goes back to Jesus himself. Second, it can’t be a name given to Jesus by the Jews and neither can it be attributed to the church, as their favorite early title for him. You know what? It looks as if Jesus must really have called himself the Son of Man!

Also, I’ll just note here briefly in passing that in Mark 2:1-12 Jesus claimed that, as the Son of Man, he had the power and authority to forgive sins! This was quickly declared to be blasphemy by the Jewish elders who were present, so they understood the point. This passage is respected by critical scholars because it is one of the so-called Q texts in Matthew and Luke, which they rate quite highly.14

But now we’ve got another problem because the Son of Man of Daniel 7:13- 14 is a very special figure, as we’ve said before. He was sent by the Ancient of Days. Critical scholars point out that this person is a preexistent, divine figure setting up God’s Kingdom on Earth. If Jesus claimed to be that figure, as in Mark 14:61-64, and someone doesn’t want to believe in the Deity of Christ, that at least seems like a serious enough reason for them to reconsider their position. Still, many or perhaps even most critical scholars still reject it!

Ankerberg: Now, did Jesus ever just come out and assert that he was the Son of God? What is the evidence for this? Again, Dr. Habermas takes the critics’ own assumptions, points out evidence about Jesus from the critical sources or layers of historical information itself, and shows that they reveal that Jesus said he was the Son of God, too. Listen:

Habermas: Now, this second title, and as I mentioned in the earlier program, seems more obviously to be a title of deity, if Jesus called himself that. Did Jesus ever refer to himself as the Son of God?

Let me reflect on a few passages here that are very helpful in making the case that Jesus referred to himself in this manner. Again, we have to be able to rule out Monday-morning quarterbacking from the writings of the early Christian community, as well.

First, let’s begin with Matthew 11:27 and its parallel saying in Luke. Here we have a passage that comes once again from the so-called “Q” passages that are found in Matthew and Luke but are absent from Mark. Critical scholars often treat these texts, along with the gospel of Mark, as the earliest gospel testimonies of all. Of course, they think that the “Q” sayings predate Matthew and Luke in order to be quoted in them. But some scholars hold that this source predates these two gospels by decades. Yet in Matthew 11:27 and its parallel, Jesus states clearly that the Father is the only one to know the son and the son is the only one who knows the Father: “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom he will reveal him.”

In this teaching, Jesus is claiming to possess unique knowledge of his Father, who is God, and that he is in effect the “Son of the Father.” Since this is found in the very early “Q” strata, according to the way the critics view this, it’s a very tough text to just simply ignore. It is sometimes even called the “Johannine thunderbolt” because it sounds like the high, exalted Christology found in the Gospel of John, in spite of being of much earlier origin!

Next, another prominent text is Mark 14:36, and here Jesus calls his Father “Abba.” A lot has been written about this term, including by the prominent German New Testament scholar of a few decades ago, Joachim Jeremias, who claimed that Abba is a very special term. In his very influential argument, he made the case that there was not a single example of this usage found in the Palestinian Jewish community. Jeremias translates Abba as “dear Father” and calls it “new and unheard of” as “the claim of a unique revelation and a unique authority.” But it’s in Aramaic, Jesus’ language, and thereby seems to be Jesus’ exact words.15

Let’s make a really quick reference here to Mark 12:1-12, too. Jesus tells a parable where a nobleman’s son was killed by wicked tenants. Mark explains that the Jewish leaders who were present knew that Jesus spoke the parable against them.

Incidentally, as a parable, this passage would also count as another criterion--multiple forms—for a Son of God teaching.

So far we have a statement from the so-called early “Q” verses in Matthew and Luke, an Aramaic reference to “Abba,” and now one of the strongest statements of all: Mark 13:32. Now, one might be stunned at a first read, thinking, “What’s Jesus’ point here? How can this be a verse about his claiming to be Deity? In the very same context where Jesus indicates again that he is the Son of the Father, he states that he doesn’t even know the time of his coming? So, no one knows the time of his return, not even Jesus himself, but only God?”

But the apparent difficulty here and the seeming reason for the consternation is exactly what makes it such a strong text that Jesus called himself the Son of the Father in this context. Here’s the key point: how could we even imagine that the church invented this saying by placing these words back onto the lips of Jesus after the fact, when, by so doing, they are clearly, simply, and straightforwardly asserting something that seems to go against the very fiber of the teaching itself? Why wouldn’t they just make Jesus say that he is the Son of God and leave it at that? But why say something in the immediate context that seems so seemingly contradictory, raising the question: “You mean you’re the Son of God but you don’t know something, even concerning yourself?”

It is very widely agreed that this situation simply appears to be theologically embarrassing. What early Christians would make that up about Jesus? If they wanted to invent a saying that Jesus called himself the Son of God, then just come right out and say it: “And Jesus answered and said, `Behold, I’m the Son of God.’” But no!

They’ve got to go and announce in the exact same text, just a few words away, “and I don’t know the time of my coming.” Who would invent a saying like that on Monday morning and place it in the mouth of their Lord and Master?

Many find this saying to be very difficult. But the fact of the difficulty itself indicates that the best conclusion is that Jesus actually said this—these are his teachings. He indeed stated that he was the Son of the Father. Any other conclusion of a fabricated saying is simply more embarrassing for the “Monday morning church crowd.” The issue of why Jesus didn’t know the time of his coming may raise immediate flags for some, but it is not difficult to explain at all. I cannot pause here on this, but this is not the only time in the New Testament that states that Jesus grew in his knowledge (examples include Lk. 2:52; Heb. 5:8-9), indicating that he did not know something prior to his learning it.

But be that as it may, that statement in Mark 13:32 certainly appears to be too embarrassing to have been made by anyone other than Jesus himself. In other words, it is such a difficult sentence that, by critical standards, Jesus must have been the one who said it.

So then, we have a “Q” statement, a comment calling the Father “Abba,” and we have Jesus saying that he is the Son of the Father in a very embarrassing context. I think in each of those cases that we have strong evidence that Jesus did claim to be the Son of God, just as the gospels proclaim.

Ankerberg: Now, once again, we want to drive home the point that using the critical scholars’ own assumptions, you can show that Jesus claimed to be God. That doesn’t mean we agree with their assumptions; it just means that the historical evidence is so strong, non-Christians can come to believe in Christ by examining these facts. Dr.

Habermas summarizes this point. Listen:

Habermas: Perhaps we should backtrack here just a little bit and talk about theological definitions and, in particular, the method that I’m employing here. My point is this. If you take the traditional view of Jesus Christ as laid out in the gospels at face value, in the red letter editions, obviously no one is going to dispute the fact that Jesus in those texts claims to be the Son of God, died on the cross for our sins, and was raised from the dead.

However, I’m taking a different approach, what I might call the “Minimal Facts Method.” It is what I sometimes call that “lowest common denominator” approach. I’m saying that, even if the critics were correct about their own methodology and can note, say, five layers of tradition behind the four gospels, we can make very good use of these texts alone. After all, we are utilizing actual gospel texts, such as Matthew 11:27, Mark 14:36, and Mark 13:32. In each of these passages, Jesus is making a claim to be Deity. We’ve also talked about exceptionally early New Testament creedal traditions along with some early Acts sermon summaries that also clearly make lofty claims about Jesus.16

Evangelicals sometimes question such a piecemeal approach, asking, “Hey, look--this whole book is Scripture. Why do we have to look at pieces?” But the critic who views the New Testament as just a book of ancient literature and perhaps nothing more, is looking for the earliest, best-attested statements in support of whatever topic we are studying. And since we are doing apologetics here, we wish to put our strongest foot forward.

Remember also that many Scripture passages specifically tell us that some earlier statements are being used that predate the books in which they appear. Paul clearly states that he passed along the material that he had received from others, a report that he took to be a central matter of first importance. ( I Cor. 15:3) He states almost the same words concerning another tradition in 1 Corinthians 11:23. Many

other times, too, we also read comments regarding the existence and passing on of prior traditions.17

Lastly, when evangelicals preach or teach, they may even speak regularly from a series of key texts extracted from anywhere in Scripture, too. Really, what’s the difference in commenting on or even isolating these specific passages?

The bottom line in this discussion is that we have a number of texts in the synoptic gospels that, according to critical methodology, support Jesus having called himself both the Son of Man and the Son of the Father. Add to this that we also discussed in some detail perhaps the major text (Mk. 14:61-64) where Jesus affirmed being both the Son of the Blessed One as well as the Son of Man in the previous program, including sitting on God’s right hand. These references are supported by brief creedal confessions that are early, predating the books in which they are written, and also confirm these designations. All of these early creedal comments could well be apostolic in nature and seem to be precisely that at least in the case of 1 Corinthians 15:3ff.

So even if all we had were the critically-ascertained, lowest common denominator methods, we still have excellent reasons to think that Jesus called himself the Son of God. Even the use of critical methods fails to displace this last argument. We really can arrive at some of the strongest arguments for the Deity, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus in this manner.

Ankerberg: Now, one of the most outrageous claims being made by members of the Jesus Seminar and other critics today is that the 27 books that now make up the canon of the New Testament were chosen for political reasons, not because these books were known and accepted for good reasons by the early Christians. It is often claimed that Christians purposely suppressed other books and gospels about Jesus that depicted Jesus in a far different way than did Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. One of the books that some claim was purposely kept out of the canon was the Gospel of Thomas. But Dr. Habermas shows such claims are not true, that the Gospel of

Thomas wasn’t even in existence before 150 AD, and all the books in the New Testament were written before 100 AD. So the book of Gospel of Thomas couldn’t be part of the canon. Listen:

Habermas: You know, John, this is one of responses that really sets me off. So we have, at the very least, the critically-ascertained portions of the gospels that we have been addressing here, plus the sermon summaries in Acts, plus the pre-Pauline creeds in various epistles, plus what critical scholars call Paul’s “authentic” or “undisputed” epistles. Critics accept these six or seven Pauline epistles as authoritative texts—not as in any way inspired, but as generally reliable. These epistles are among the key portions, in apologetic terms, of the traditional canon. It looks like we are on solid ground at these points here. And the moderate critical scholars will largely agree with these sources, as well.

But what about those scholars, whoever they are, whether in the Jesus Seminar or elsewhere, who want to tell us that we kept other books out of the canon by political moves such the big guys vetoing the little guys by might, since the other books didn’t see eye-to-eye with them? So in spite of the other, unorthodox sources being in existence, orthodox gatekeepers wanted their notion of Jesus to “win,” so they orchestrated and pulled strings behind the scenes in order to mold the canon to their own liking. The Gospel of Thomas may be the best example of what is sometimes said to have been purposely disallowed. So, why were some books “disallowed”? Let’s make Thomas our test case here–why was it kept out of the canon?

A few things need to be addressed right up front. First, no matter what is decided with regard to other writings, we must still deal with the evidence that we have already discussed from

a) the pre-Pauline creeds,
b) the Acts sermon summaries,
c) Paul’s authentic epistles, and d) select, well-evidenced gospel passages like those we have singled out above. Whether or not there are other texts, these have to be accounted for, first and foremost. After all, Peter, John, James the brother of Jesus, and Paul are all apostles and eyewitnesses (though Paul may well only have been with regard to his own resurrection experience). So this is an especially crucial foursome with regard to the central gospel message, as laid out in Galatians 1:18-2:10. The four apostolic testimonies coincided with one another nicely.

Second, no one thinks that the Gospel of Thomas was written by the Apostle Thomas or anyone even close to him. So the traditional canon at this juncture is clearly superior and more authoritative. What does “more authoritative” mean in this context? The core of texts that we enumerated directly above are written by the witnesses who were clearly in the closest proximity to Jesus.

Third, how about this idea that there was some sort of political move to keep out other books like Thomas? In 100 AD, a few years after the latest canonical book was completed, there couldn’t have been such a political move involved, simply because there were no books at that time like Thomas that could be kicked out of the canon! The power brokers couldn’t have decided, “Mark is in, but the Gospel of Thomas is out. Why? Because the Gospel of Thomas didn’t even exist at that time—it wasn’t even written yet!

If members of the Jesus Seminar or anyone else care to date Thomas earlier, especially the occasional comment that it might be a few decades earlier, it is distinctly a minority position. Of course, minority positions could turn out to be correct. But we’re not basing this on guesswork here. Where are their data for this? I want the same level of evidence for Thomas that we had to produce for the orthodox sources listed above. “Could be” and “Maybe so” simply don’t cut it!

It appears to many scholars that something else entirely is going on here. More critical scholars strongly desire rival views of Jesus. They are tired of the orthodox majority and want alternatives badly, just as in other areas of our society as a whole. But many scholarly publications have shown that these alternatives are simply nowhere to be found at this early date. So these radical scholars tend to push and push, where innuendo and the slightest hint are often boldly juxtaposed alongside very early and credible orthodox sources

For example, “early” is a term that is sometimes used very loosely in these contexts, even indicating texts that were written in the Second or even the Third Centuries AD, rather than just 30-35 AD or just a very few years after that, as we have been using them. These critical scholars have nothing like these earlier and authoritative texts.

By far the majority of scholars date Thomas in the second century. So once again, the reason nobody made a decision against Thomas in 50, 60, 80, or 100 AD is because there was no Thomas, according to almost everyone.

So, there’s no choice of an orthodox canon of books dated before 100 AD where people could decide, “This is it. We’re only going to take these writings and we’ll throw out the ones over there that we don’t like.” I’d like to know: what books were in the other pile that was cast away? And when are they being dated?

Let’s view the argument the other way around, by switching sides. Evangelicals would be absolutely laughed out of court if we argued something like these critics do: “We’ve got a few books here that we need to have considered along with the rest. True, they may well date about a half century to a century or more later than the latest of the earlier ones, but we need to be more inclusive here. Why can’t this be a “big tent” of views and then everyone can simply pick the Jesus they want to follow? It’s just so prejudicial not to include our later texts in the canon.”

Do you know what critics would probably say if their sources were the earliest? “Don’t you think that one hundred years late is just a little bit too late to be an early source for the life of Jesus? I suppose you’d propose alternate, unhistorical views of George Washington, as well!” That’s the chief problem for Thomas. The reason it’s rejected in the canon is because it’s too late to be very helpful. It’s not rejected because someone didn’t like the politics or because they didn’t like any unorthodox views in the canon. First and foremost, it is simply too late. It cannot be shown that we had several pictures of Jesus making the rounds between 50 and 100 AD. It cannot be shown that the authoritative Jesus is other than that represented by his apostles such as Peter, John, James, and Paul. The Gospel of Thomas simply wasn’t written between those years.

Ankerberg: Now, how would you show a non-Christian that the 27 books making up the New Testament are truthful books about Jesus, that they were accepted by eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life, such as the apostles, and known to be authoritative books by Christians who knew the apostles? Well, there is solid, historical evidence that forms the foundation for our trust in these books. Listen:

Habermas: I’d like to say one other thing about the early canon. We have been dealing primarily with two sets of books here: the four gospels plus Acts (with Acts traditionally being viewed as volume 2 of Luke), and Paul’s epistles. That’s five books in the first block. Critical scholars will grant as authoritative about seven of Paul’s epistles, while conservatives want to count all thirteen epistles as Paul’s. But there are signs that these two sets or blocks of books were already viewed as being authoritative at the end of the first century AD. Nobody waited until Nicea in 325 AD to begin producing a list of canonical books.

Take these three early Christian writers that we mentioned earlier: Clement of Rome’s epistle to the Corinthians, written about 95 AD, Ignatius’ seven epistles written about 107 AD on the way to his martyrdom, and Polycarp’s Philippians, written about 110 AD. There are nine brief epistles here. These authors cite, quote, or otherwise refer to Paul and his epistles just short of a hundred times. Further, they cite 12 of the 13 epistles that bear Paul’s name. The only one they leave out is Philemon, which is only one chapter long and largely non-theological. But in these references, Paul is called an apostle and inspired. His epistles are quoted right there at just before and just after approximately 100 AD by three authoritative writers.

These same ancient authors quote, cite, or otherwise refer to sayings that are found in the gospels and Acts well over 100 times. These two bodies of literature, the gospels plus Acts and Paul’s epistles (with 12 out of 13 being cited) are recognized as inspired right there at the close of the New Testament canon, at about 100 AD.

Let’s revisit the Thomas thesis. Why are other volumes not considered for the New Testament canon? There are really no competitors, no other gospels floating around to compete with the gospels and Acts. No other epistles have anywhere near the status of Paul’s writings, with up to 200 references to all 18 of these texts right at the close of the first century. Folks, the canonical material, especially the portions that we have highlighted above, are very, very early material and recognized as authoritative.

How about Thomas? Clement (about 95 AD), Ignatius (107 AD), and Polycarp (110 AD) cite or refer to the gospels, Acts, and Paul many, many times. But guess what? They didn’t even quote a single time from the Gospel of Thomas. Why?

Because they’re trying to push Thomas away from the canon? No. There’s no reason to think that Thomas was around during those early years. What doesn’t exist cannot be quoted. If they don’t know it, they cannot cite it!

On the other hand, we have plenty of evidence for the use of the authoritative New Testament gospels, Acts, and Paul’s epistles. Remember: it’s not the early Christians’ fault if they accepted all the gospels that were in existence at the end of the first century and there were only four of them!

Endnotes

14 Even highly-critical New Testament scholar Norman Perrin of the University of Chicago counts this passage as most likely being historical, due to the criterion of multiple attestation. (Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus [New York, N.Y.: Harper and Row, 1967], p. 29).

15 Jeremias, The Central Message of the New Testament, see Chap. 1, “Abba,” particularly pp. 16, 30 for his conclusions.

16 It should be noted that when arguing for the New Testament texts where Jesus or others are discussing his Deity, the amount of critical scholars who agree with the claims is not as unanimous as with the texts pertaining to the end of Jesus’ life.

17 Besides the texts in 1 Corinthians 11:23ff. and 15:3ff., some other examples include 1 Timothy 1:15, 3:1, 4:9, 2 Timothy 2:11, and Titus 3:8.