The Real Jesus: Myth #4 (6 of 10)

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Myth #4: Jesus did not claim to be God

The idea that Jesus did not claim to be God is often put in a more subtle way.

Jennings: "The word Messiah did not mean the Son of God. It simply meant 'the anointed one.'" [34:52]

[INTERVIEWS WITH PANEL OF EXPERTS: "Did Jesus claim to be God?"]

The idea that the Jewish Messiah is God himself is not something that first century Christians made up. The divinity of the Messiah is something we find throughout the Old Testament.

[INTERVIEWS WITH PANEL: "Is the Old Testament Messiah divine?"]

The great Reformed scholar Benjamin Warfield wrote:

"It is quite clear, at the outset, that the writers of the New Testament and Christ Himself understood the Old Testament to recognize and to teach that the Messiah was to be of divine nature. For example, they without hesitation support their own assertions of the Deity of Christ by appeals to Old Testament passages in which they find the Deity of the Messiah afore-proclaimed." (Dr. Benjamin B. Warfield, The Divine Messiah In The Old Testament)

As an example of this, let's look at Psalm 110, which happens to be the most quoted Old Testament passage by New Testament writers.

"The Lord said to My Lord, sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool." — Psalm 110:1

Jesus himself brought this prophecy into focus when He confronted the skeptics of his day.

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?"

They said to Him, "The Son of David."

He said to them, "How then does David in the Spirit call Him "Lord,' saying:
"The LORD said to my Lord,
"Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool"'?

If David then calls Him "Lord,' how is He his Son?" And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore. (Matthew 22:41-46)

Let's look at Psalm 110 carefully: God addresses the Son as God. He tells us that the Lord Jesus sits upon God's own throne. We have to ask: Who except God could sit upon God's throne? Jesus sits on God's throne because He always was and always will remain God in every sense of the word.

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[humanistheart]

Lol, there is no virgin prophicies, nor does the bible even idicate mary was a virgin. Are all christians that ignorant?

[jcr4runner]

@humanistheart Ironically BOTH Matthew and Luke interpret the prophecy to mean a "virgin" so the fact that Jews of that day understood it to mean that with no qualification or further explanation gives it further credibility.

[humanistheart]

@jcr4runner Hardly. First of all the 'virgin' birth is a mistranslation that's become popularized in christian lore. Like how christians think satan and lucifer are one and the same, and is a fallen angel. 2nd if you knew history you'd know the vast majority of jews did not exept that explanation. Christianity was originally a failed Jewish reform movement, if it had succeeded judiasm and christianity would never had diverged.

[jcr4runner]

@humanistheart No. The Virgin birth was "popularized" by the Gospels.

I agree with your last statement. Christianity has no conflict with the religion of the Old Testament.

[humanistheart]

@jcr4runner 3rd, we don't know who authored Mathew or Luke, they may or may not have been jews. And 4th, there is no prophecy concerning a virgin birth in the scriptures.

[jcr4runner]

@humanistheart "We don't know" except for the fact that it was universally attested to by the early church with no controversy until the 1800s when atheists posing as theologians decided to attack anything and everything that was accepted by the church for centuries.

[jcr4runner]

@humanistheart I am all for skepticism, but I apply the same test to the Bible as all literature. Genuine authorship should be determined by early manuscripts with postscripts or superscripts with the author's name, by external testimony of authorship that is close to the writing of the documents, and by a lack of controversy over authorship by those who first received the documents.

The Gospels far surpass all other ancient documents in these three tests.

[mrtalkntext11]

do good not because there's heaven but because it is good...

don't do bad not because there's hell but because it is bad...

[booniesman88]

@humanistheart (Isa 7:14) Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

[durbinjeff]

@humanistheart

I must confess that I have heard this verse for 45 years, I have heard many men tell me that the word virgin or Alma in the Hebrew language means a young unmarried woman. These teachers are sincere, they are correct with the translation. But they are wrong about the point, because a young unmarried woman having a baby is not that miraculous. It is not that uncommon.

[durbinjeff]

@humanistheart Do you know the good news?

Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

[humanistheart]

@jcr4runner

No, in fact the gospels fail entirely on all thee tests. We don't have a single original script for any of the books of the NT (or the hebrew bible for that matter) there has never been any 'external testimony' from anyone involved with the writing or author of these gospels, nor do the writers identify themselves. In fact if you read the first verses of luke he states flat out he's not an eye witness.

[humanistheart]

@jcr4runner We don't know who authored these texts. If you have some proof to this I'd recommend writing a paper on it as no one has been able to do this before. As for your comments concerning athiests, that's just desperation on your part. Get back to me if you ever find that mysterious source.

[humanistheart]

@jcr4runner Almost, it was popularized by mistranslation of the gospels.

That's not what I said at all, in fact it's the complete opposite. Jews rejected jesus and the evolving chrsitian doctine because it did conflict with their scriptures. This is why christianity divulged from judaism.