Theos Or Not, Jesus Did Not Claim Nor Believe Himself To Be God: A Response To William Lane Craig
Why Jesus Remains Just An Exalted Jewish Preacher, Despite what Dr. William Lane Craig says
Dr. Bart D. Ehrman, a textual critic and historian of Christianity moved the public perception of Jesus when he released his book How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee. This trade book made a point that many scholars have already believed. That Jesus wasn’t God. Not in the atheist way of simple unbelief in Christianity but rather the claim that Jesus himself never claimed to be God. The divinity of Jesus was a later development.
Of course, this claim of Dr. Ehrman is not accepted by modern Christians. Since Dr. Ehrman brought this claim to popularity, many modern Christian apologists have written numerous pieces against Dr. Ehrman defending their belief that Jesus is not only the son of god but also claimed to be the son of god. Among those apologists is Dr. William Lane Craig, a Christian Philosopher who (among many other ventures) runs the blog Reasonable Faith With William Lane Craig. For this blog Dr. Craig answers questions weekly. In April of 2022 he released Question of The Week #778 Ehrman on Jesus’ Divinity. In it Dr. Craig replies to Dr. Erman’s claims. Despite Dr. Craig’s claims however I still stand with Dr. Ehrman that Jesus did not believe himself to be God, but first I wish to frame this debate.
There’s a pretty big issue that comes up when Christians debate secular scholars. That is they have completely different fact patterns. Christians believe in the historicity of the Bible1
; Secular scholars, on the other hand, tend to doubt parts of the bible leading to a clash when these groups interact. This debate, however, only works on the grounds of secular scholarship. This is because of quotes from the Gospel of John such as
“I and My Father are one” (John 10:30)
Secular scholars such as Bart Ehrman typically believe that John is the last of the gospels and therefore holds later developments. However only if you believe that can this discussion even occur. Therefore to have such a discussion we must take an areligious approach to the New Testament, which Dr. Craig will attempt to do. Now that the stage has been set, this article can address Dr. Craig’s six arguments which can be viewed here
“1. Ehrman has a defective understanding of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation. According to the classic doctrine of the incarnation articulated at Chalcedon in 451, Christ did not simply have a divine mind but also had a human mind, which was accordingly limited in knowledge and typical for a first century Galilean Jew. But for Ehrman the incarnate Christ was supposed to be basically like Superman disguised as Clark Kent. So he expects Jesus to go about saying things like, “Hello, I am God” and so is surprised when he doesn’t. An orthodox doctrine of the incarnation rejects the notion that the man Jesus had that sort of divine consciousness. As you correctly discern, Jesus’ divinity does not depend on his having that sort of self-consciousness and making such assertions.”
This point tries to do two things. At first, it claims Jesus was limited in knowledge and therefore wouldn’t know that he was God. However, we don’t see this in any of our accounts. Jesus never learns that he’s the Messiah or anything of the sort.
He then makes an argument that the fact Jesus didn’t tell people isn’t any proof there was no claim. However firstly if Jesus didn’t ever show he believed himself to be God it at least gives way to say that we don’t know. Secondly, when Jesus claims other titles such as Messiah (a figure who traditionally isn’t God) it implies he believes himself to be messiah, not god.
Further, he mischaracterizes Ehrman, it’s not simply because Jesus never says “Hello, I am God” that Ehrman levies doubt. It’s because nowhere in our accounts do we get any indication that Jesus believed himself to be God. A fact that would probably come up at some point.
2. For Jesus to claim to be God would have been tantamount to claiming to be the Father, which would have been false and misleading. The Greek word for God (theos) in the New Testament typically refers to God the Father, as you can easily verify yourself with your English Bible (e.g., Romans 1.7: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”). God the Father had sent Jesus; the Father did not Himself come to die on the cross. So it would have been outrageously false for Jesus to claim to be God.
Now Dr. Craig argues that Jesus didn’t claim to be God to avoid some kind of confusion. However this argument doesn’t hold up. Jesus could have explained that he is God but not God the Father. This argument only works if you assume Jesus only had one second to explain who he was. Further
Dr. Craig’s argument relating to the word Theos is a complete absurdity. That word was certainly not exclusive to God the Father. It’s used to refer to Zeus. As Thayer’s Lexicon explains it refers to Gods in general. Beyond that though Jesus didn’t speak Greek! He was a Jewish man in Judea and would certainly speak Aramaic (even if you wish to claim he knew Greek his audience wouldn’t). Therefore on top of this argument being untrue, it’s irrelevant.
3. The historical Jesus made implicit Christological claims that imply the deity of Christ. As I explain in my book Reasonable Faith, chapter 7, “The Self-Understanding of Jesus,” we can show that the historical Jesus made claims and engaged in practices that implied his divinity. You mention his claim to forgive sins. His miracles and exorcisms are significant, not for the power they require, but because they served as signs of the inbreaking of God’s Kingdom into human history in his person. And so on. Jesus was therefore condemned as a blasphemer by the Jewish Sanhedrin for these claims and delivered over to the Roman authorities for execution for treason. But God’s raising Jesus from the dead vindicated those allegedly blasphemous claims, revealing him to be exactly who he claimed to be and thereby enabling his followers to see him as truly divine.
This argument mostly relates to the acts of Jesus that display him to be God. Dr. Craig mentions two in particular, Jesus's forgiving sins, and miracles.
On forgiving sins, many already forgive sins without claiming divinity. When a Catholic priest forgives sins at confession they don’t claim to be God. It’s entirely plausible to say Jesus forgiving sins was not a divine act. It’s possible to even interpret it as not being an act of God whatsoever.
“When he saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.” (Luke 5:20)
Not, I forgive your sins.
4. Rather than call Jesus “God,” the earliest Christians appropriated the title “Lord” for Jesus. Indeed, the confession “Jesus Christ is Lord” was a necessary condition of salvation (Romans 10.9). Now here’s the interesting part: “Lord” (Kyrios in the Greek) is the word used to translate the name of God (Yahweh in the Hebrew) when the Greek Old Testament was read aloud by Greek-speaking Jews. In fact, New Testament authors like Paul quote Old Testament passages about Yahweh and apply them to Jesus (e.g., Romans 10.13)! This extraordinary practice leads to some interesting circumlocutions, e.g., “For us there is one God (theos), the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord (kyrios), Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (I Corinthians 8.6). Here God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are described in almost identical terms as the Creator of all things, a role reserved for deity alone, and yet they are personally distinct.
This paragraph proves nothing and is a distraction from Ehrman's claim. No one denies that Paul thought Jesus was God. This paragraph has nothing to do with what Dr. Craig claims to discuss.
5. The earliest Christians, right back to the first years following Jesus’ crucifixion, worshiped Jesus along with the Father. This phenomenon is unparalleled in Judaism. Nowhere else do we find Jews worshiping along with Yahweh some other divine figure. Scholars therefore speak of the “binitarian” beliefs and worship practices of the earliest Christians: as strict monotheists they believed in and worshiped only one God, but there were two persons equally worthy of that worship, namely, the Father and the Son. Because they were equally God, they were equally worthy of worship.
Not only does this prove nothing, as it addresses Christians after Jesus as opposed to the man himself, but further, it’s filled with untruths. Specifically Dr. Craig’s claim “This phenomenon is unparalleled in Judaism. Nowhere else do we find Jews worshiping along with Yahweh some other divine figure”, we do though. An example is Enoch veneration.
6. On rare occasions the New Testament authors do go so far as to refer to Jesus as theos (John 1.3; 1.18; 20.28; Rom 9.5; Titus 2.13; Hebrews 1.8-9; II Peter 1.1). It is as if the authors in their exuberance simply cannot contain themselves and so come right out and say, “Jesus is God.” Not that Jesus is the Father; rather there are two persons who are equally God.
This also is irrelevant as it once again doesn’t relate to Jesus himself. Further this argument displays a clear fact about Dr. Craig and many modern apologists. They say whatever they think will help them survive an attack in a specific moment without considering how that affects other things they’ve said. Earlier claiming Jesus as Theos was “outrageously false but now the bible authors claiming Jesus as Theos is evidence.
The purpose of Dr. Craig’s article is not to legitimately consider Dr. Ehrman’s points. There’s no attempt to understand and properly refute the arguments. The goal of what Dr. Craig is doing is to come up with whatever quick argument seems plausible enough, so his Christian followers can go on without legitimately considering the challenge
Even though some Christians do not believe every fact of the bible as history those Christians still tend to believe more of the bible than secular scholars