This past summer was
certainly one of the busiest, and trying, for me that I can remember. The death of my wife's
mom, hospitalization of my father, and a large flow of family and friends
visiting allowed little time for blogging. But, summer is now over, and I have
been rejuvenated by a cruise to Alaska with my wife at the end of September. So,
the Lord willing—for better or worse—I plan to be blogging more in the upcoming
weeks.
[The following is a
picture of yours truly in the art gallery of the ship I was on.]
Grace and peace,
Vow ! David , u r truly a handsome man .You can give George clooney a run for money .Also , i am impressed with ur scholarly knowledge .
ReplyDeleteI have read a lot of ur posts on the monarchy of God . What i feel after reading those posts is u somehow take Jesus as divine but consider him somewhat of a lesser deity than God the father . According to me u tend to take the supposed sayings of Christ in the Gospels at face value , specially Gospel of John . No scholar dealing with historical Jesus studies will claim that Christ identified himself as God and they will also do away with a lot of what is attributed to him in John .
If Jesus himself did not claim divinity , nor considered himself to be a pre-existent being or a sort of an angelic being ...then what forms the basis of your claim of ascribing any sort of divinity to him or exalting him to a position which he himself did not claim ?
Hello Ali,
ReplyDeleteSo good to see you back. Sincerely appreciated your compliments—you are much too kind...
Yesterday, you wrote:
==I have read a lot of ur posts on the monarchy of God . What i feel after reading those posts is u somehow take Jesus as divine but consider him somewhat of a lesser deity than God the father .==
Me: I hold the view (as do a number of Eastern Orthodox scholars and theologians) that the one God in the Bible is God the Father, and not the Trinity and/or the divine essence. The Bible clearly indicates that the Logos/Son of God owes his existence to the Father, "the one true God", which is but one of the reasons why in the Gospel of John we read from the lips of Jesus that, "the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28).
==According to me u tend to take the supposed sayings of Christ in the Gospels at face value , specially Gospel of John .==
Me: Guilty as charged.
==No scholar dealing with historical Jesus studies will claim that Christ identified himself as God and they will also do away with a lot of what is attributed to him in John.==
Me: A number of internationally recognized NT scholars disagree with the above—e.g. Raymond Brown, Joseph Fitzmyer, Miroslav Volf, N.T. Wright, Ben Witherington III, Darrell Bock, Daniel Wallace, Karl Barth, Larry Hurtado, Richard Bauckham...
==If Jesus himself did not claim divinity ,==
Me: Depends on the definition of "divinity". With that said, I would say for sure that he never claimed to be "the one true God". (One must keep in mind that Hebrew and Greek terms used for God, divinity, divine, etc. had a much broader use of meanings than us modern folk.)
==nor considered himself to be a pre-existent being or a sort of an angelic being==
Me: Though some Christians like the Socinians deny the claim that the Bible teaches the pre-existence of Jesus as God's Logos, they are certainly in the minority.
==...then what forms the basis of your claim of ascribing any sort of divinity to him or exalting him to a position which he himself did not claim ?==
Me: With all due respect, I believe that the Bible does ascribe some "sort of divinity to him".
With all the above in mind, have you read my God is Light thread ???
Also, I found the following Master's thesis to contain some material germane to our conversation: Finding Muhammad in the New Testament.
Looking forward to your further thoughts...
Grace and peace,
David