And one can also simply go into the attribution tag and change it to the correct username. Is it an easy edit, so that is what I often do. (I’m lazy. So I don’t always track down the original text in its original posting. I just make the edit manually.)
2 Likes
This is very true… it may not change the avatar, though… So it can still be confusing… It is a shame that they will not fix this.
In my experience it does display the correct avatar after the manual edit. To confirm that fact, I just now did such a manual edit on your post—as to the quotation from me within it—as I replied heretofore. As the username changes, the avatar changes with it.
1 Like
Yes, you are right… I recall now that what I described was if a nested reply was displayed… it gets confused.
You could also use a > character on it.
>this is a quote
this is a quote
No. Remember, that post is not me making an argument that Jesus is not God. That post is me citing what mainstream scholarship says on the subject of what the Bible says about Jesus being God. That post is me providing evidence for this previous statement.
It is well recognized today in mainstream scholarship that the vast majority of historical Christians, including “the vast majority of first-rank Christian theologians”, were totally wrong on these issues.
I note you haven’t addressed any of the scholarship I cited, and instead you’re trying to change the subject to something I didn’t say (straw man).
What I wrote was this.
It is well recognized today in mainstream scholarship that the vast majority of historical Christians, including “the vast majority of first-rank Christian theologians”, were totally wrong on these issues.
I note once more that you’re avoiding any reference to the scholarship I cited.
This is sheer desperation. The historical theologians I cited believed that Jesus called himself God, and that Jesus was believed to be God by his earliest disciples. They did not believe that Jesus didn’t call himself God, they did not believe that Jesus was not believed to be God by his earliest disciples, and they certainly did not believe that the earliest view of Jesus as a divine being emerged decades later after theological development written by people writing pseudepigrapha who were neither disciples nor apostles.
Why? This isn’t relevant to what I wrote. It doesn’t matter if they do or don’t, I’ve already provided plenty of scholarship to support my original statement on the matter of Jesus being God. But just for you, I’ve made the effort to look through all of them.
-
Harper’s Bible Dictionary (1985). Doesn’t address the topic at all, even though it as an article on Jesus, an article on God, and an article on the Trinity (on which it comments “The explicit doctrine was thus formulated in the postbiblical period, although the early stages of its development can be seen in the NT”).
-
Encyclopedia of Judaism (2000). Doesn’t address the topic at all, even though it has a lengthy article on Jesus.
-
New Bible Dictionary (3rd ed. 1996). Doesn’t address the topic at all, even though it has an extremely lengthy article on Jesus, his life on earth, his mission, his ministry, and his teachings. In the article on the Trinity it says that despite all the descriptions of Jesus in the gospels, “taken on their own, they stop somewhat short of an outright claim to eternal, divine Sonship”, says “The claims above are thus overpressed when taken (with the resurrection) as hard ‘proofs’ of Jesus’ divinity”, and says “Even Jesus’ claim to preexist Abraham does not itself ‘prove’ eternal divinity”. Would you agree? It speaks of Jesus being given the title “God”, and says that Philippians 2:16 is an “early hymnic confession of Jesus’ pre-existent divinity”, but does not say this is calling Jesus God (it notes that in earlier Judaism pre-existent divine figures existed who were not God), and describes the New Testament witness as a “binitarian confession”. Would you agree?
-
Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology & Counseling (2nd ed. 1999). Does not address the topic at all. Doesn’t have an article on Jesus or the Trinity, and it’s article on God is only from the point of view of God as a psychological concept.
-
Eerdmans Bible Dictionary (1987). Says very little about the topic. The closest it comes is in a comment in the article on Christology, which says “The New Testament—both the Gospels and Paul’s letters—clearly states that Jesus Christ is both divine and human”, but does not say they identify Jesus as God. Its article on the Trinity is even more subdued, saying that in John’s gospel there is a “complex interplay between the Father and Son”, while also saying that “Triadic formulas in the New Testament are often regarded as implying a developed doctrine of the trinity, but this is to read too much into them”, and citing two New Testament passages as stricltly subordinationist and differentiating Jesus from God.
-
New Dictionary of Theology (2000). Speaks explicitly of “the first Christians’ claim that Jesus was God in human flesh”. Finally one of them actually comes out and supports orthodoxy! That’s one out of six so far.
-
Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000). In a very short and highly conservative article on Christology, the closest it comes to the topic is saying “While the NT writings raise questions about the identity of Christ, explicit christological statements do not appear until well into the 1st century when the early Church is striving for self-definition and orthodoxy”.
-
Tyndale Bible Dictionary (2001). Does not address the topic at all. The closest it comes is saying “The first major theological decision of the church resulting from such believing thought was the affirmation of the essential deity of Jesus as the Son of God” while avoiding any mention of exactly when this happened. No passages of the New Testament are cited as saying Jesus is God, or even divine.
-
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (rev. ed. 2002). The article on Christology starts well into the Patristic era, and doesn’t even address the second century, let alone the New Testament. In its article on Jesus, it addresses the New Testament witness to the divinity of Jesus with statements like these.
-
“Confining our immediate attention to the Gospels, we may seek the data that portray the deity of Jesus; but first a caveat must be entered. The lines of evidence are more indirect and inferential than forthright and declarative”
-
The nearest there is to the last-mentioned feature is the Fourth Gospel’s record of His use of the magisterial formula I AM (on which see E. Stauffer, Jesus and His Story, pp. 142ff)."
So much for the gospels. The article doesn’t say anything about any witness that Jesus is God (or divine), in any of the other New Testament books. It only addresses the gospels.
-
Encyclopedia of Christianity (2003). Does not address the topic at all. The article on Jesus speaks about his messianic self-understanding, but says nothing about him being God (or divine). The article on Christology says John’s gospel introduces the idea that Jesus was pre-existent, but says nothing about him being God (or divine). With regard to the other gospels, it just says they say he was the son of God. The rest of the article talk about Paul’s view of Jesus as pre-existent, but says nothing about Paul (or anyone else in the New Testament), thinking Jesus was God (or divine).
-
Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2005). Does not address the topic at all. The lengthy article on Jesus makes much use of Form Criticism, Redaction Criticism, and other tools of the historical critical method, to which you would certainly object.
-
Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible (rev. ed. 2009). States explicitly “To the Jew “Lord” thus expresses Christ’s full divinity and equality with God”. That’s another one!
So out of all twelve sources, only two of them represent the New Testament as teaching that Jesus is God (or divine). Two out of twelve. You’re welcome.
I notice that you haven’t attempted to address any of the actual scholarship I cited on either Jesus or the immortal soul. On the subject of the immortal soul I provided a very wide range of scholarship across denominational lines. Do you dismiss all those works as “very liberal”, and “unorthodox”? How do you account for the fact that they support what I said?
But that doesn’t affect my statement at all. Remember, this was my original statement.
It is well recognized today in mainstream scholarship that the vast majority of historical Christians, including “the vast majority of first-rank Christian theologians”, were totally wrong on these issues.
I have already proved this in two cases.
Regarding some of the claims that just because the Bible doesn’t mention something explicitly that that means it isn’t supported by scripture is like saying that an algebra textbook doesn’t support the principles of algebra because the word ‘algebra’ is not mentioned in the book. It doesn’t need to be to teach algebra.
2 Likes