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Did Jesus Claim to Be God? (David Wood vs_ Alex O'Connor)
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all right so how the debate is going to go uh the title of the debate is "Did Jesus claim to be God?" We're going to have opening statements we're going to have rebuttals we're going to have counter rebuttals there will be clocks for the speakers to see you guys won't see them and then uh after all of that we're going to move the the table to the middle and we're going to do open dialogue and then after that we're going to do some Q&A just like we've been doing the past couple nights ray Rock with the microphone do not grab his microphone okay he's real serious about it and so this is gonna we're gonna go for I'd say at least two hours tonight okay it's gonna be a fun night and um we're going to have both gentlemen give opening statements uh 20 minute openings okay and it's going to be fun so uh let me introduce our speakers for the night our debaters for the night first up who will be arguing the affirmative ladies and gentlemen warm round of applause for David Wood oh yeah the podium is right here david Wood ladies and gentlemen all right and all the way from London England um I've I've had a blast getting to know this brother for the past couple days it's been super fun and he's probably going to hate me for saying this but he actually joined us on his birthday weekend all right without any further ado ladies and gentlemen warm round of applause for Alex O' connor all right oh yeah we're good let's You ready tell us when you're ready so we can start the clock i'm ready now oh you started okay well good evening good evening what a beautiful audience you're all breathtaking this is how you uh charm a crowd in America son like to thank uh Rustlan for arranging this conference and this debates one of many awesome debates taking place in 2025 pitting heroes against villains i won't say who the villain is in this debate i'll let all you lovely Christians judge that for yourselves based entirely on our accents and speaking of British accents I'd like to thank Alex for finally showing up you got to give me some wiggle room on time Rosean or you can all quit cheering for Alex all right well I'd like to thank Alex for finally showing up i was a month and a half late but he finally showed up i'm teasing by the way uh people have no clue how dangerous debatecon is actually with the lineup they had and the number uh and the volume of death threats against uh multiple speakers so uh plus he lives in what is rapidly becoming the Sharia compliant hell hole of the universe so good to take precautions we don't want to lose Alex by the way are you guys starting to miss Jesus over there in the UK seems like you should be missing Jesus by now speaking of Jesus did Jesus claim to be God yes yes he did and I'm sure uh many of you have some verses going through your heads right now however I'm convinced that the primary way Jesus claimed to be God and that his followers claimed he's God uh gets overlooked by most Christians and non-Christians because we've lost touch with first century Jewish culture and we just tend to uh not notice things let me give you an example of what I'm talking about here's a quote from Daniel Boyerin in his book The Jewish Gospels the story of Jesus Christ the story of the Jewish Christ he says "Most if not all of the ideas and practices of the Jesus movement of the first century and the beginning of the second century and even later can be safely understood as part of the ideas and practices that we understand to be the Judaism of the period the ideas of trinity and incarnation or certainly the germs of those ideas were already present among Jewish believers well before Jesus came on the scene to incarnate in himself as it were those theological notions and take up his messianic calling so the ideas were there paving the way for Jesus who embodied them now who's Daniel Boyerin to say that Christian ideas like the trinity and the incarnation were already present in some form in first century Judaism is he a Christian apologist no he's uh he's a scholar of rabbitic Judaism he's a Talmud scholar he points out that a lot of the beliefs we now think of as distinctively Christian actually weren't the earliest Christian church was embedded in first century Jewish culture but as Christianity spread it became dominated by gentile Christians who tended to lose touch with the Jewish framework and something was happening within Judaism as well as Jewish orthodoxy was forming in the second century the rabbis tended to weed out certain ideas that had once been familiar in Judaism but which had been adopted by Christians the rabbis wanted to clearly distinguish Judaism from Christianity and some of the ideas that were present in first century Judaism were soon deemed heretical so Christians lost touch with the Jewish framework of early Christianity and Jews abandoned some of the Jewish ideas that became part of Christianity and the result is that today it's easy for us to miss a few things when we're reading the Bible claims that would have been uh understood by listeners at the time might not be understood by us here in my opening statement I'm going to briefly discuss the forgotten Jewish idea that's most relevant for understanding how Jesus claimed to be God and then I'll show how this forgotten Jewish idea illuminates various passages in the New Testament some of you are familiar with the early Jewish belief in the two powers in heaven ellen Seagull the Jewish scholar drew attention to this in his 1977 book Two Powers in Heaven and lots of people especially Christians have been interested in the topic ever since here's the idea in a nutshell the Old Testament is very clear that there's one true God but there are numerous passages in the Old Testament where we see two divine figures i'll give a few quick examples there are tons of these sometimes God seems to be in two different places doing two different things common example is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah the Lord appears to Abraham and tells him that he's going down to Sodom and Gomorrah to see firsthand how bad the people are so he goes down to Sodom and Gomorrah and what happens genesis 19:24 then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven the Lord on earth rained down fire from the from the Lord out of heaven this thing reboot every couple minutes uh it sounds like there are two lords here watch what happens in Zechariah 2 pay attention or you'll miss it come Zion escape you who live in daughter Babylon for this is what the Lord Almighty says who's speaking the Lord Almighty and he says "After the glorious one has sent me the Lord was sent by the glorious one against the nations that have plundered you for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye I will surely raise my hand against them so that their slaves will plunder them then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me." The Lord Almighty was sent by the Lord Almighty next paragraph shout and be glad daughter Zion for I am coming and I will live among you declares the Lord Yahweh many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day and will become my people i will live among you and you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you the Lord Yahweh will live among them and they will know that the Lord was sent by the Lord Almighty so Yahweh rains down fire from Yahweh yahweh is sent by Yahweh plenty of passages like these then we got a mysterious figure called the angel of the Lord whenever you think uh whatever you think of when you think about angels just get rid of that uh the angel of the Lord is no ordinary angel because this angel is somehow the Lord angel just means messenger in Hebrew it can refer to a human messenger a spirit messenger or in this case the Lord himself look at Judges 6 the angel of the Lord came and sat down to talk to Gideon the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon then it switches to the Lord turned to him the Lord answered then it goes back to the angel of the Lord then when Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord he exclaimed "Alas sovereign Lord I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face." But the Lord said to him "Peace do not be afraid you are not going to die if you see the Lord in all his glory you're dead but if you see the angel of the Lord who is somehow the Lord you might survive." One more example of this here's Jacob blessing Joseph in Genesis 48 then he blessed Joseph and said "May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked faithfully the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day the angel who has delivered me from all harm may he bless these boys." He singular so the God the God and the angel are all referring to the same being the angel is God but the angel is the messenger of God this is all over the place in the Old Testament from Genesis all the way to the prophets we just don't pay attention to it when we're reading uh but there were ancient Jews who paid very close attention to passages like these and they realized that something very very strange is going on there's one God but there were two powers two authorities in heaven if you put all of the passages together it seems like there's God you can't be around because his presence would destroy you and God you can be around somehow there's God you can't be around and God you can be around the God you can't be around is distinct from the God you can be around they interact with each other one sends the other and yet they're both God this was all very very confusing to first century Jews if there's one God why are there two powers in heaven why are there two powers who both act like God they tried to deal with this problem in a number of ways but mainly they were confused and then Jesus came along and he says in effect you know those two powers that you've been reading about in the scriptures you know those two powers that you're so confused by i can tell you about those two powers because I'm one of them that's the primary way Jesus claims to be God it's the primary way his followers claim that he's God it's a primary way uh it's primary issue that enrages his opponents but did Jesus really claim to be one of the two powers in heaven since Jesus is a highly controversial figure and since there's a skeptic in our midst I would suggest that if we want to know what someone like Jesus is claiming about himself we can look at six things we can look at what Jesus says and what Jesus does what he says and does as they relate to our topic we can look at what his friends say and what his friends do here I mean what they say and do in reaction to him and we can look at what his enemies say and what his enemies do again in reaction to him so what Jesus says what Jesus does what his friends say what his friends do what his enemies say what his enemies do i would put all of that together and say that's our evidence that we need to account for and that will give us the best indication of what Jesus was claiming about himself i don't have a ton of time left so we'll consider a few things Jesus says and does and a few things his friends say and do along the way we'll see um the reactions of some of his enemies and maybe I'll add a few more uh examples in the rebuttals what does Jesus say jesus claims to be one of the two powers in heaven in multiple ways i'll give you three the most familiar is the father son language he uses jesus claims to be the son of God now someone can be a son of God in various ways in the Bible blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God but Jesus claims to be the son of God in a unique divine sense one example Matthew 11:27 all things have been handed over to me by my father and no one knows the son except the father and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him all things were handed over to the son by the father no one knows the son except the father obviously the people around jesus knew him in some sense but they didn't really know him only the father really knows him and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him no one can know the father unless the son chooses to reveal him this should sound somewhat similar to the old testament idea that there's god you can't be around and god you can be around two powers father and son jesus is the son mark 12 while Jesus was teaching in the temple courts he asked why did the teachers of the law say that the Messiah is the son of David david himself speaking by the Holy Spirit declared "The Lord said to my Lord sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet." David himself calls him Lord how then can he be his son whose So whose son is the Messiah he's the son of David but David calls the Messiah his Lord how many lords do we have here the Lord said to my Lord according to Jesus the second Lord here the Lord of King David is the Messiah so we've got two powers in heaven and Jesus is one of them on a side note if you're a Christian and you're wondering why we're talking about two powers instead of three where's the Holy Spirit uh he's there but but we're focusing on how Jesus claimed to be God and that's connected to the two powers in heaven mark 14 again the high priest asked him are you the Christ the son of the blessed and Jesus said I am and you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven and the high priest tore his garments and said what further witnesses do we need you have heard his blasphemy what is your decision and they all condemned him as deserving death what do the what do the enemies say this is blasphemy what do they do tear their garments That's what they do when they're outraged about blasphemy and condemn him as deserving death why do they react like that the son of man that's Jesus' favorite title for himself who will be seated at the right hand of power so there's the power which sounds like God and there's the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven how many powers in heaven i see two here and Jesus claims to be one of them so who's gle who is Jesus claiming to be at his Jewish trial he's claiming to be the son of man prophesied in Daniel 7:13-14 daniel says "In my vision at night I looked and there before me was one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven he approached the ancient of days and was led into his presence he was given authority glory and sovereign power all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him his dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed." So there's the ancient of days God but there's also the son of man who will be worshiped by all nations whose dominion is everlasting and who comes with the clouds in the Old Testament Yahweh is the one who rides the clouds humans don't angels don't isaiah 19 see the Lord rides on a swift cloud psalm 104 the Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on the waters he makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind so God comes with the clouds so we've got the ancient of days who sounds like God and we've got the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven who sounds like God two powers in heaven and Jesus claims to be one of them jesus claims to be one of the two powers in heaven multiple times multiple ways in multiple sources jesus says a lot more than that but what does Jesus do jesus judges the world in the Old Testament David says "The Lord abides forever he has established his throne for judgment and he will judge the world in righteousness." Who's the judge here yahweh but in Matthew 25 Jesus declares "But when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him then he will sit on his glorious throne all the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate them from one another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." Jesus goes on to say that he will admit certain people into heaven and cast others into hell why is Jesus the final judge he tells us in John 5 "For the Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father." Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him if you don't honor God you can be around you don't honor God you can't be around jesus also raises the dead at the resurrection according to the Old Testament Yahweh is the one who raises the dead 1st Samuel 2:6 the Lord kills and makes alive he brings down to shol and raises up but Jesus says he's the one who raises the dead at the resurrection john 5 truly truly I say to you an hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the son of God and those who hear will live for just as the father has life in himself even so he gave to the son also to have life in himself and he gave him authority to execute judgment because he is the son of man do not marvel at this for an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come forth those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment so Jesus claims by what he says and what he does that he's one of these two powers in heaven and that means he's claiming to be God and his friends got the message how do his friends react what do the early Christians say in Philippians 2 Paul quotes an early Christian song or poem or creed about Jesus goes like this in your relationships with one another have the same mindset as Christ Jesus who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death even death on a cross therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father what's the name that is above every name yahweh and at the name of And at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord this is a reference to Isaiah 45 in verse 18 Yahweh says,"I am the Lord and there is no other." Then in verse 23 he says,"Before me every knee will bow by me every tongue will swear." The early Christians said "That's Jesus." So Jesus was in very nature God then he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death then God exalted him how many powers do you see here two and Jesus is one of them paul quotes that and obviously agrees with it but look at how Paul describes the two powers for us there is one God the Father from whom are all things and for whom we exist and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist there is one God the Father you see Jesus can't be God it's only one God well keep reading and one Lord Jesus Christ does that mean that Jesus is Lord but the Father isn't all Paul does here is take two titles for God and says,"I'll call the father God and Jesus Lord." Two powers and Jesus is one of them what about John 1 in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God he was in the beginning with God all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made there's God and there's the word but the word was God how many powers two and Jesus is one of them if you really want a fun verse later in the same chapter try John 1:18 no one has ever seen God the only God who is at the father's side he has made him known sounds like two powers it's what the early Christians say among other things what do they do wrapping up they worship him they pray to him they sing hymns to and about him they baptize in his name they compose liturgy and doxologies to honor and praise him in other words they give Jesus the full array of religious honors what could convince a bunch of first century Jews that a carpenter from Nazareth was one of the two powers in heaven probably the same thing that convinced his enemies that he was guilty of blasphemy would have to be something big either really big claims of Jesus or a really big misunderstanding we'll uh see which option Alex goes with all right that is David Wood's opening statement and Alex is going to take the podium for his 20 minute opening statement david went over 1 minute and 14 seconds so we will give Alex a grace period of 1 minute and 14 seconds can everybody hear me through here yes David didn't factor in the clapping i always factor in clapping into the timing of my speeches good evening ladies and gentlemen [Music] thank you or as we say in England assalamu aalaykum i I I must apologize for the previous debate fiasco david's right that most people don't know what happened a lot of accusations thrown my way but I suppose that is the essence of our debate this evening people thinking they know a thing or two about a person without hearing it from their own mouth to which effect I was thinking about how to approach this given that I didn't know which approach David was going to take i woke up this morning in this fine resort um opposite Legoland which means that there's a a roller coaster just outside of my room and being a bit jet-lagged I woke up quite late to the most peaceful of noises that is the sound of children screaming for their lives hearing the sound of innocent children screaming for their lives of course reminded me to read the Old Testament and I wanted to begin with a verse that was too easy i factored that into my time as well i want to begin with a verse from the Old Testament which might become relevant momentarily and that is well a psalm not in its entirety but Psalm 82 psalm 82 is a curious psalm because it opens by saying that God presides in the great assembly he renders judgment among the gods elohim that is definitely the word for gods this seems to be an indication that God is talking about or the psalmist is talking about the so-called divine council which also shows up in Job for example later in the psalm he says "I said you are gods you are all sons of the most high." The psalmist is referring to beings here who are definitively not Yahweh but calling them gods which is kind of interesting i'm not trying to make a point out of that jesus is going to do that for me as we turn to what I think is the most important christoologgical gospel of the four which is of course John's gospel many people think that I just dismiss John's gospel because it's written too late or something it is of course the least historically reliable of the gospels but I'm willing to just treat it as if it's historically reliable for the purposes of this debate and see what Jesus actually says about himself the question we're interested in in here is the relationship that Jesus has to his father david has been speaking about the two powers in heaven heresy and saying that Jesus's relationship to the father is the kind of relationship that people who believed in these this two powers was talking about well let's investigate that in Jesus's own words there is one place in the gospels where Jesus is directly accused of claiming to be God do you know where it is it's in John chapter 10 in John chapter 10 his Jewish opponents come to him and say "If you're the Messiah tell us plainly." And Jesus responds by saying "I and the Father are one." I'm told by Christians this is a direct christoologgical claim who can claim to be identical to the father except for someone who is God and there was no confusion about this the Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him to death for making this claim now how does how does Jesus respond does he agree with them or does he correct them he says in response to the Jews "Is it not written in your law I have said you are gods?" Quoting as you'll probably realize the psalm that I just quoted and explained briefly a moment ago so directly asked about his christoologgical status Jesus decides to quote a psalm which is explicitly talking about beings who are not in fact Yahweh and yet are called gods why would he pick that psalm if the message he wanted to convey was that he is in fact in some sense God that is identical to Yahweh jesus continues "If he called them gods why wouldn't he call me God the one who the father has sent and set aside so why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said I am God's son?" Like in the divine counsel you shall be called gods that is sons of the most high so it's a misunderstanding jesus immediately afterwards clarifies further and says believe the works that is the works of my father through me that you may know and understand that the father is in me and I am in the father another pretty intense christoologgical claim what does it mean let's turn to the most important christoologgical chapter in John's gospel which is of course chapter 17 jesus is praying first for his disciples then for all of his believers remember in John chapter 10 so far Jesus has made two claims i and the father are one and I am in the father and the father is in me addressing the relationship that he has to his father which David thinks is the two powers in heaven what does Jesus say in his own words john 17 20 onwards my prayer is not for them alone the disciples i pray also for those who believe in me through their message that is all of you that all of them may be one hen hen the same Greek word used in John 10 father just as you are in me and I am in you may they also be in us this is crucial this is pivotal when Jesus is asked to clarify his christoologgical status what is his relationship to the father he says "I'm in the father and the father's in me." He then later prays that all of us will one day be in God in the same way just as cathos in the Greek which doesn't just mean as it means in the same way as just as if this is supposed to indicate that Jesus is claiming to be identical to Yahweh what does that make the rest of us and how I'm interested in knowing is David going to interpret these verses where Jesus is specifically asked to clarify his relationship to the father and tells us that he is only in relationship with him in such a way that everybody else can be in relationship with them too the same thing is true of another important quote from John's gospel which is when Philillip asks Jesus to show him the father what does Jesus say anyone who has seen me has seen the father another intense christoologgical claim he then follows up by saying how can you say show us the father don't you believe that I am in the father and the father is in me the words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority rather it is the father living in me who is doing his work so again Jesus clarifies his relationship to the father this time saying that he doesn't speak on his own authority but there's more in the same chapter this time chapter 14 just a few verses later he says to those same disciples who he's just told I that if you've seen me you've seen the father because the father is in me and I'm in the father he speaks of a future day past his crucifixion and says on that day verse 20 on that day you will realize that I am in my father and you are in me and I am in you so to recap Jesus is directly asked to clarify his relationship and his christologology to the father and he says that I'm in the father and the father's in me and guess what you'll all be one with us too one day if this is a claim to be Yahweh then well lucky us I suppose now it's difficult to know where to take this because of course there is a third really important christoologgical claim in John's gospel which is in chapter 8 i think it might be relevant to talking about the understanding of ancient Jews and we'll see where this goes of course famously in chapter 8 Jesus is talking about eternal life and his Jewish opponents say to him they challenge him and say "Well our father Abraham he died are you saying you're greater than him?" And Jesus replies "If I glorify myself I glorify my glory means nothing your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day and he was glad." They say "What you you're not even 50 years old and Abraham has seen you." And he says "Truly I tell you before Abraham was I am." Why is that important two reasons firstly he seems to claim pre-existence to Abraham which is pretty significant but also this invocation of the word I am in Greek ego am which many people think is a call back to the divine uh name of God given to Moses in Exodus 3:14 in Exodus 3 Moses asks God "Who shall I tell them has sent me?" And God says Asha which means I am that I am i am who I am so go and tell them that I am has sent you it's interesting but of course the New Testament is not written in Hebrew it's written in Greek and it's well known that the authors of the New Testament were using a Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagent this is something that was pointed out by J.R daniel Kirk so I'm indebted to him for this if you read the Septuagent that the New Testament writers were using and we have very good evidence to suggest that John as well is using the Septuagent how is this verse rendered exodus 3 god says to Moses "Ego Amy hon." And it's used commonly like this in John chapter nine the blind man is healed by Jesus he runs into town they say "Is this not the man who was born blind?" And he says "Ego Amy it's me." When Jesus is asked by the woman at the well the woman at the well says "I'm expecting the Messiah to come." Jesus says "I am he." Ego Amy once again that is how it is often used so in the Greek Septuagent we have I am hon go and tell them that Hon has sent you in the Greek Septuagent in other words the abbreviation of the divine name is not ego Amy it's Hon and it's ego Amy that Jesus says and in fact Jesus says the words ego Amy six times in chapter 8 of John's gospel and yet this is the only time it seems to annoy anybody why is that well maybe because it's got more to do with the fact that Jesus seems to be claiming eternality but supposing for a moment that this really were uh an invocation of the divine name I'm just willing to grant it let's say okay he was meaning to evoke this imagery of Exodus 3 by saying I am here we have to understand as David is quite right to point out the cultural context of early Judaism and there is a tradition in early Jewish texts or at least texts of around the contemporary time to the gospels of endowing beings who are not Yahweh with Yahweh's name and thereby enabling them to exert his authority as his representative on earth david has already talked about the angel of Yahweh and there is the suggestion that the angel of Yahweh is Jesus that doesn't seem to make much sense to me for a start if you turn to Hebrews chapter 1 the very first verse says "In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son." in these last days if Jesus is the angel of the Lord way back in Exodus the story of the Exodus why is it that Hebrews says he's only spoken to us through the sun in the last few days likewise in Acts chapter 6 Steven is recounting a history of the Jews and in it he says that an angel spoke to Moses through the burning bush not Jesus but a messenger of Yahweh it's a little bit strange but suppose we just accept that the angel of Yahweh is a bit difficult to unpack augustine himself by the way said that the angel is correctly termed an angel if we consider him himself but equally correct he is termed the Lord because God dwells in him what does that mean i think it's an invocation of the divine name this is most elucidated for me when we turn to non-scriptural Jewish writings of around the same period for example in well actually in third Enoch Metatron is called the little Yahweh invoking the divine name and in fact to the extent that the Talmude warns Jews not to confuse Metatron with Yahweh because that seems to be the implication of what he's saying but he is in fact just invoking the name the most important example of this for me is the apocalypse of Abraham written around the same time as the Gospels a Jewish text which tells the story of Abraham who hears the voice of God and he's terrified and he hits the ground and God he hears the voice of God speaking to an angel and he speaks to an angel saying "Go Yahweh," that's the name of the angel of the same name through the mediation of my ineffable name consecrate this man for me and strengthen him against his trembling through the mediation of my divine name which he's given to the angel Yahawel Yahel by the way Yah and L it is a substitute for the ineffable name of Yahweh the writing of which is forbidden and that's why he's called Yahawel and in fact at one point God is himself addressed as Yahawel in this text Abraham is told by this angel Yahawel "Stand up Abraham go without fear be right glad and rejoice for I am with you for eternal honor has been prepared for you by the eternal one i have appointed to be with you and the generation prepared for you so the angel invoking the divine name by the way says to Abraham "Rejoice for I'm preparing for you essentially redemption and it will come from your generation." And by the way when Yahawel when Abraham finally stands up one of the descriptions of Yahel's appearance is that his hair is white like snow where have we heard that before but interesting isn't it let's think about the context of John 8:58 a lot of people forget that we're talking about Abraham why are we talking about Abraham why is it here that Jesus says "Before Abraham was I am." Well if I'm right that he is just identifying himself and the thing that's important is the Abraham claim could this stem from a similar tradition this is what Andrew Perryman has suggested recently that when he says I mean this whole thing gets kicked off because Jesus says "Abraham rejoiced to see my day." Well hold on a second and in the apocalypse of Abraham the angel Yahawel says to Abraham "Rejoice for from your generation will will come one who will you know redeem you." So is it possible that a common tradition has Jesus referring to the fact that Abraham rejoice to see his day because he was promised this redemption from the beginning of time it's possible it's a suggestion i think it's quite an interesting one but it is a little strange that Jesus claims to be pre-existent he uses the present tense I am it's worth bearing in mind that the Bible sometimes does this when it is talking about plans that are pre-ordained from the beginning of time for example in Revelation 13 we hear about the lamb who was slain from the creation of the world it's talking about Jesus there jesus wasn't crucified at the beginning of the world but it talks about it almost in the like in the present tense or at least as if it happened there and then why because the plan for this redemption through the lamb was set in stone from the beginning of time so it talks about it as if it's in the present tense similarly famously in the book of Jeremiah God says to the prophet Jeremiah "Before I formed you in your mother's womb I knew you." He also says "Before you were born I consecrated you as a prophet." How can you consecrate someone as a prophet who doesn't exist yet that means that Jeremiah must be pre-existent right he must be No not necessarily it just means that God had this plan it's a poetic way of saying that God already knew what was going to happen and had planned this from the beginning of time so putting all of this together there is an interesting interpretation of Jesus saying that Abraham rejoices here my day and the Jews not understanding him not getting it he says "Look before Abraham was I am i am the fulfillment that was promised to Abraham and was from the beginning of time and here I am now of course this is all exesus and it's a little uh sort of spotty but the most important question is probably about blasphemy david mentioned blasphemy in a different context earlier why is it that they pick up stones to to stone him to death because of course if I'm looking for a sound exesus of correctly interpreting the words of Jesus I turn to his Jewish opponents who consistently throughout the gospels are always understanding him correctly no the theme of the gospels especially John's gospel is how comprehensively the Jews misunderstand what Jesus is saying when he says "I and the father are one." They say "Ah you're claiming to be God." And he said "No no you're not getting me." When he says that he forgives sins and they say "Ah you know who can forgive sins but God alone?" He says "You're not understanding me." And hopefully we can get into that actually and here of course when they say "Ah we're going to stone you." We're not told exactly what blasphemy they think he's committed do we now just think that they got it right that they correctly understood what he was saying i'm not so sure especially considering that if you look in Acts again I've already mentioned Acts 6 this is Steven steven is telling the story of the Jews to the Jewish authorities who he's been brought before on charges of blasphemy he's eventually stoned to death why because he has a vision in Acts 7 filled with the Holy Spirit he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God notice God not the father look he said I see the heavens opened and the son of man standing at the right hand of God at this the Jews cover their ears run up to him and stone him to death notice the similarity by the way between this depiction looking up and seeing the Son of Man sat at the right hand of God or stood at the right hand of God in this case and the claim that Jesus makes in his trial it's quite interesting steven is stoned to death for this did Steven claim that Jesus was God here did Steven claim that he was God here sometimes Christians act as if the only way to commit blasphemy is to claim to be God that is simply not the case in fact in Acts chapter 6 we're told that Steven has been fraudulently accused of blasphemy they're making up charges against him here are the charges that they that they throw at him to bring him before the court for blasphemy this man never stops saying things against this holy place and the law for we'd heard we've heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses has handed on to us ladies and gentlemen if changing the customs that Moses has handed on to us is enough to get somebody convicted of blasphemy I'm not sure we should read too deeply into the accusations of blasphemy against Jesus there's so much to say i've got everything I want to respond to we have rebuttal periods so if I haven't responded to everything David has said hopefully I'll get the opportunity then but this idea of the divine name being invested into people and him having and them having the authority of God without being Yahweh themselves is I think the important ticket here one slightly less biblical example is a story recorded by Josephus which came to mind when David was speaking when Alexander the Great approaches Jerusalem in an attempt to conquer it the crisis is averted when a priest whose merit bears the tetragrammaton Yahweh bears the name of God comes out and what does Alexander do he bows down before the priest was Alexander bowing down before the priest or was he bowing down to the divine name that was in him when every knee will bow to Jesus what is the context jesus has been given the name that is above all other names given it this is a common theme and so David's right that we need to understand what how the early Jews were interpreting the the various verses that we were reading but I don't think it lends too nicely to his interpretation jesus is constantly talking as if he's not speaking with his own authority he's doing this all the time the most instructive example for me is in John 12:44 when Jesus cries out "Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in the one who sent me." That's if you read the NRSV the NIV adds in the word only "whoever believes in me believes not in me only but in the one who sent me." That word simply isn't in the Greek it's a little bit strange i want to talk more about that i want to talk about authority and where it comes from i want to talk about the forgiving of sins i want to talk about worship for sure and whichever roads we whichever one of those roads we go down is essentially up to David Wood but I'm ready for any of them so we'll see what comes up thank you for [Applause] listening all right so that is Alex O'Connor's 20-minute opening so David is going to go back up to the podium he is going to do a 12minute rebuttal round all right thank you Alex in my opening statement I showed that in the first century there was an interesting discussion within Judaism uh about the two powers in heaven they had various ways of dealing with this um and we can see why when we read passages like Genesis 22 the story of Abraham and Isaac but the Lord uh but the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven abraham Abraham here I am he replied uh wait no then God said "Take your son your only son whom you love Isaac and go to the region of Mariah sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on the mountain on a mountain I will show you." So this is God saying to Abraham "Take your son." Verse 11 "But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven." Abraham Abraham is when he uh starts to do it "here I am," he replied "do not lay a hand on the boy," he said "do not do anything to him now that I know now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son your only son so this is the angel of the Lord saying you haven't withheld from me your only son and it was God who answer who ordered Abraham to do this um so we have we have situations like this and I argue that Jesus enters the discussion uh when they're confused about the two powers in heaven and claims to be one of them and so there we looked at what Jesus says what Jesus does what his friends say what his friends do uh what his enemies say and what his enemies do uh Alex uh seems to suggest that the there could be some sort of uh angel or something like this or even a person who's in who's endowed with this kind of divine authority uh you got problems with this even uh even here in uh Genesis uh so look at what this said then the Lord Genesis 33 then the Lord said to Moses "Leave this place you and the people you brought up out of Egypt and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham Isaac and Jacob saying I will give it to your descendants i will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites Amorites Hittites Perizzites Hisites Jebusites go up to the land flowing with milk and honey but I will not go with you because you are stiff necked people and I might destroy you on the way." Who is accompanying them and guiding them well the angel of the Lord but here he says "I'm not going with you this time." So this is the Lord speaking it's not the angel of the Lord and you say "Oh this is the Lord." This is the Lord speaking this is the Lord speaking says "I'm not going up with you now." When it was the angel of the Lord who was accompanying them so these are the sorts of things you have and people tried to figure out how to deal with this and they came up again with all sorts of ways and Jesus entered the picture and claimed to be one of the two powers in heaven so what Jesus says we went through three examples of Jesus claiming to be one of the two powers he's the divine son of the father he's the lord of king David and he's the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven and we saw how people reacted to him claiming to be the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven um in response Alex was quoting uh he quoted Psalm 82 and then Jesus uh using this using this passage so let's go ahead and take a look at this so they accuse Jesus of claiming to be God and Jesus answered them "Is it not written in your law I have said you are gods if he called them gods to whom the word of God came and scripture cannot be set aside what about the one whom the father set apart as his very own and sent into the world?" So Jesus is sent into the world according to this passage why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said I am God's son uh this is not and I have no idea how you would ever read the gospel of John like this let alone anything else Jesus said this is not Jesus saying what you're misunderstanding i'm just a regular dude i again if you if this were the only verse in there maybe you because if if given the rest of what we read in the Gospel of John and the rest of the Gospels Jesus is not claiming to be a regular guy he's using a legal technicality here that they should be aware of they're saying "Hey here's what you're claiming you're claiming to be a son of God this means you're claiming to be equal to God and so on and therefore uh this is blasphemy." And Jesus response is "Well that really well in the Psalms." In the Psalms God calls people Elohim therefore you can't just say calling someone some divine title is blasphemous and deserves a death sentence you have to show that it's some that the title is not from God that it's not true that it's false have you done that no okay you can't kill me you can't just say there's a claim and therefore we will kill you over it so that's a legal technicality again if you're if you're somehow reading this as "See Jesus is just claiming to be a regular guy." Wow all right so we have John 17:5 and now Father glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began why alex quoted John 17 to show that Jesus is uh just claiming some some uh regular relationship that we can all have with God or something along those lines what does Jesus say in the same chapter that Alex is quoting and now Father glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began that sounds like Jesus is claiming to have glory with the Father before the world began doesn't sound like he's claiming to be a regular guy doesn't sound like he's saying "Oh you guys are just misunderstanding everything I said it's just one big misunderstanding." So what Jesus does what Jesus does we've looked at it he I think he said he's going to respond to it so what does Jesus do he's the judge he's the final judge of all people according to him uh again the Old Testament says that Yahweh is the one who's going to sit on his throne in judgment jesus said "Yeah that's me." The Old Testament says that that Yahweh is the one who raises the dead jesus says that he's the one who raises the dead at the resurrection the people in their graves are going to hear the voice of the son of God now that is very strange if that's oh that's how we all are we're all going to be raised from the dead by the son of God if that's him saying "Oh we're all just the same and yeah we we can all you you'll be in me and I'll be in you." Very strange way of putting things what his friends say now this is interesting alex quotes Steven in Acts 7 now this is a this is an awesome passage because this this kind of proves everything I was saying in my opening statement look at this so Steven rebukes the Jewish leaders in the harshest terms you can possibly rebuke someone watch what he says you stiff necked people your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised you are just like your ancestors you always resist the Holy Spirit was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute they even killed those who predicted the coming of the righteous one and now you have betrayed and murdered him you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it that is absolutely brutal guess what they get mad they don't get violent which what happens when the members of the Sanhedrin heard this they were furious and nashed their teeth at him but Steven full of the Holy Spirit looked up to heaven have they gotten violent yet looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God look he said I see heaven open and the son of man remember that the son of man standing at the right hand of God oh you got God and then just someone else how many powers in heaven when do they get upset what watch when they get upset i see I see heaven open and the son of man standing at the right hand of God two powers in heaven and Jesus is one of them now watch how they react at this they covered their ears and yelling at the top of their voices they all rushed at him dragged him out of the city and began to stone him meanwhile the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul when do they get violent when he says Jesus is one of the two powers in heaven that's what that's exact that is the precise moment when they get violent jesus is one of the two powers in heaven so keep in mind this actually supports me right i mean this is one of this this is one of the early Christians who gets stoned to death for saying that Jesus is one of the two powers in heaven and if you're thinking he's just h just a just a regular guy hanging out in heaven first of all um you might want to check about someone being in the presence of God and what sort of person you'd have to be but look look what look what uh look what he I mean Oops do I have it oh I don't have it right right right after this is when when uh Stephen I don't have it on a slide uh right after this is when Stephen looks up and says what lord Jesus receive my spirit is that just a regular guy in the presence of God up there no that's someone who receives the spirits of people that a regular guy so Alex thinks this is just God endowing someone with authority um does not look like that jesus seems to be the authority here and this not only gets Steven killed this sets Paul on a rampage paul says "I have to wipe this stuff out." Why we're told in the book of Acts what really sets Paul off uh when Ananas is told that Paul is coming well Saul back then he says that he's been told to apprehend everyone who calls on this name why is that an issue calling on the name that's that's how you describe prayer in the Old Testament calling on the name calling on the name of Yahweh and Paul sees the Christians calling on the name of Jesus the way they're supposed to call on the name of Yahweh why is this relevant paul converts to Christianity about 2 years after the crucifixion when is this taking place this is not something that happens 50 or 60 years after the time of Jesus we have Christians calling on the name of Jesus as they call on the name of Yahweh and we can trace it to within two years of Jesus crucifixion so if this is a misunderstanding that's a pretty big misunderstanding and Jesus must be the worst communicator of all time uh Alex brings up the Septu the Septuagent responding to John i didn't uh I I didn't uh rely on the passages he's responding to uh but if you want to go to the Septuagent in in terms of uh interpreting uh interpreting the claims of the New Testament let's go to Luke luke 6:46 why do you Jesus says "Why do you call me Lord Lord and do not do what I say?" If you want to talk about the Septuagent there's only one other there's only one other place outside the outside the Gospels where they use this Lord Lord that's the Septuagent and it's a translation of Adoni Yahweh God Adoni Yahweh so it's the Lord Yahweh but in Greek they would translate Adonai and Yahweh as curios so it's curios curios in the se in the septuagent and here Jesus says why do you call me Lord Lord and not do what I say and so if you want to if you want to interpret Jesus based on the Septuagent claiming to be Yahweh here you go there it is and it's in the gospel of Luke so at the end of the day uh the claim is that everything is just some sort of big misunderstanding this is very very very strange to me because you're basically saying Jesus was not a good communicator you know you think about the biatitudes and this the sermon on the mount and the parable of the prodigal son and the parable of the good Samaritan and the golden rule and so on and so on and so on jesus seems like the best communicator of all time he's a he's careful about what he's saying and sometimes he unveils things in different ways but when he he makes a point seems people get this point uh if all of his followers just seem to misunderstand him and start worshiping him and praying to him making doxologies for him and so on putting their liturgy around him then you're saying Jesus was just a terrible terrible communicator and that I have to say is the one option I cannot accept [Applause] here all right [Applause] all right so now Alex is going to go up to do his 12minute rebuttal it gets a bit messy I'm afraid ladies and gentlemen because of course we're responding to each other across purposes i respond to an opening he responds to my opening i sort of have to take it back a few places but I'll try to make it interesting we heard about the angel of Yahweh and the suggestion that this might indeed just be Jesus it might be look I I don't claim to be uh the sort of final authority on exesus here i'm simply asking you to consider what you think is a more appropriate explanation i've suggested the uh divine namebearing model as opposed to the two powers in heaven and when I look at passages such as Exodus 23 20 to 21 see I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way pay attention to him and listen to what he says do not rebel against him he will not forgive your rebellion since my name is in him i just ask which interpretation lends itself more nicely to the passages uh David's rebuttal there seemed to suggest that I was under the impression that Jesus is just some dude that is far far from the case especially in John's gospel where Jesus seems to posit himself as something of a model of faith for his disciples and for what it's worth this is kind of the image that I get of Jesus reading through the gospels what is he supposed to be something like an idyllic faithful servant of God and certainly in a special position if you include the the epistles in particular then Jesus is of course exalted um but I want to get into that but I suppose I should turn to Philippians chapter 2 which David mentions of course we're not talking Jesus's own words anymore but it's it's still quite interesting what people came to believe the mindset of Jesus Christ who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God as something to be used to his own advantage but rather made himself nothing as I'm sure you all know that word grasp there harpagmon or something like that I'm not very good at pronouncing the Greek but it means something like to steal to seize isn't it a bit strange that if Jesus is God he didn't consider equality with God as something to be seized to be stolen that's how that word is used in the Greek language how can he steal something that's already rightfully his and indeed because he then died on the cross and humbled himself even to death therefore he was given the name that was above all other names therefore whatever exalted position Jesus is given here in Philippians 2 and by the way he is given it he's given it because of his crucifixion therefore he's given the name above other names again which interpretation lends itself more nicely to these passages um I mean for what it's worth my favorite interpretation I was discussing this the other night at dinner with well not with David actually without be giving too much away but is this so-called Adamic uh James Dunn has written about this the sort of Adam christologology as applies to Philippians 2 who being in the very nature of God this this word uh meaning like the form of God if we consider that Jesus is supposed to be the answer to Adam's sin Adam's sin and Jesus redeems Adam is made in the image of God and considers equality with God as something to be grasped to be seized when he takes of the fruit and eats it and that is how man falls so how is man redeemed While Jesus Christ though also being made in the form of a God in the image of God did not consider equality with God something to be seized not him but humbled himself therefore Jesus is exalted we're told in Hebrews chapter 2 that for a time Jesus is made lower than the angels presumably while he's here on earth again it just reads to me as if at least while on earth Jesus is certainly not approximating Yahweh but he's also not just some dude david mentioned the glory that's given to Jesus in John 17:5 the same chapter that I was using yeah verse 5 father glorify me in the presence that I have with you before the world was created let's keep reading John 17 and see what Jesus wants to do with that glory in fact the very passage that I quoted my prayer is not for them alone i pray that all may be one Father just as you're in me and I am in you may they also be in us blah blah blah immediately afterwards so they may brought be brought into complete unity then they will know I've copied the wrong passage actually jesus says that the glory you've given me I will give to them in John chapter 17 he says "The glory you've given me I will give to them." the disciples we're told in Isaiah in the book of Isaiah that God shares his glory with nobody and this is sometimes a suggestion that's made is sometimes that because Jesus says "Glorify me God." In John chapter 17 he must be God because God shares his glory with nobody but people just seem to forget that in the same chapter Jesus says that he will give the glory that he has been given by the father to the disciples too again all I'm asking you to consider is however you interpret these verses where Jesus is given glory Jesus is given the judgment and be bear in mind that Jesus is given all of these things what he then does with those things and whether he delegates them to other people because if he does then it's clearly not just something that can be delegated to God himself only God judges only God can judge but Jesus says that he will judge jesus also promises judgment over the 12 tribes of Israel to the disciples so are the disciples God jesus forgives sins and only God can forgive sins in John chapter 20 21 he says as the father has sent me again cathos cathos as just as the father has sent me I'm sending you if you forgive people's sins their sins will be forgiven if you do not their sins will be retained i'm told that only God forgives sins but then Jesus gives that ability to his disciples in other words all of these things which are supposed to indicate that God that Jesus has a special relationship with God of course he does but it's a relationship that he hopes and literally prays that will be shared with everybody also this Luke 6:46 thing that David put up I want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly as far as I understand in Luke 6:46 when it when it quotes Lord Lord you know and as far as I understand David was saying that in the Hebrew this is presumably Yahweh Adonai right is that right David Yahweh Adonai in the Hebrew perhaps he'll address it in his second rebuttal and then said ah but you know in the Greek Septuagent this is translated as curios curios because it's Lord twice which translation of the Old Testament are the New Testament writers the Septuagent so the passage that they read would have said curios curious Lord twice it wouldn't have said Yahweh and then Adonite or rather the other way around I think it is it would have said curios curios so of course they're willing to use this in Luke's gospel because it says the same word twice which to them just means Lord because that's the that's the translation that they're reading also this idea that Jesus is a perfect communicator sort of David is like mocking this idea saying is am I supposed to understand Jesus as just being a terrible communicator well if you look at the way that the Jews were interpreting him like kind of at the very least people were deeply confused everybody was confused not just his Jewish opponents because they were hardened of heart his disciples regularly struggled with his teachings too asking him to expand and explain what on earth he meant it even says at one point that Jesus was speaking in parables so that quoting a psalm again they will be ever seeing everlooking but not seeing ever hearing but not understanding the gospels tell us that Jesus was speaking intentionally in such a way that people would misunderstand him and then it says "But when he was alone with his disciples he explained everything." So no I don't actually think that Jesus's public ministry was entirely clear to everybody who was listening in fact that's part of the point we're told that Jesus is constantly trying to hide his identity because he has to be careful about how he expresses himself which by the way seems to raise a cont a contradiction when you consider the fact that we're told that in at least John's gospel Jesus is going around willy-nilly calling himself God in the full view of his disciples and also his opponents he invokes the divine name and anybody listening would have completely understood what he was saying and yet throughout the synoptic gospels there is a motif the messianic secret so it's called that every time he reveals his identity he tells them not to tell anybody don't tell them I'm the Messiah but it's fine for them to know that I'm God i don't know about that um I think the best way of understanding who Jesus is is like I say a sort of idyllic human being take when Jesus walks on the water for example another uh example that's often given as a high christoologgical moment because of course in Job 9 it says that only God treads upon the waves of the ocean sure but people then also forget that Peter also walks on the water just afterwards but Peter starts sinking and Jesus says "You don't have enough faith." What does that imply that if Peter had enough faith he could have kept walking on the water what are we to take from this if Jesus is supposed to be God because he walks on the water but then Peter walks on the water too i don't think that's a very good interpretation in other words we're told that God forgives sins but then the disciples are given the authority to forgive sins in John chapter 20 we're told only God warts on the water but then Peter does this immediately afterwards we're told that only God can have the authority to judge as David says but the disciples are promised judgment over the 12 tribes of Israel that's not the only time the judgment is uh delegated by the way we're told that Jesus explicitly claims identity with God by saying he and the father are one but then Jesus prays that his disciples will be one in the same way we're told that God will share his glory with nobody else but Jesus claims to have had glory with the father before he was born but Jesus then says he wants to share that glory with the disciples we're told that Jesus only rightly accepts worship this is interesting by the way David flashed on a few passages of Jesus accepting worship in the Gospels the word most commonly translated as worship in the New Testament is progyno which means to bow down or prostrate before a higher authority and of course Jesus received this proaneo worship therefore he must be God if that is the case then we have to consider the fact that David in the Septuagent for example bows down proc before Esau that Joseph's brothers proc before him when he's governor of Egypt that the entire nation of Israel offers proc worship to King David as well that Lot procano before two angels proskano is littered throughout the old and also the New Testament by the way uh in the parable of the unmerciful servant when one of the servants returns he offers procoo to his master and this is a story that Jesus is saying also let's not forget that in revelation Jesus promises that his true followers his their enemies will proc worship before them Jesus himself in revelation is saying that human beings will receive proc worship if procaneo worship is something that only god can receive then all of these people sinned all of them the entire assembly of Israel sinned when they bowed down before David i don't think that's a good interpretation there is another word that's sometimes translated as worship which is latruo this is religious cultic worship that is only offered to God nowhere in the gospels is this offered to Jesus how many times is procao worship how many times is any kind of worship accepted by Jesus in Luke's gospel does anybody know zero the word comes up three times twice in the temptation of the desert where it's discussed and once at the end after Jesus has ascended so he can say nothing about it and in a verse that's contested in our manuscript traditions how many times in Mark does Jesus accept worship this time the answer is two but one of those is the demon legion it's usually translated as throws himself at his feet before Jesus and the other is when the Roman soldiers mockingly worship Jesus they offer Proscono why because he's the king of the Jews because procire worship is something offered to kings higher authorities i'll keep going perhaps in my further rebuttal but if worship is something that is only due to God then there are a lot more sinners in the Bible than we think okay thanks all right so now David Wood is going to do his second six-minute rebuttal and then that will be followed up by Alex's six minute rebuttal all right alex says we're looking for the best explanation i would submit that the best explanation for Jesus claiming to be one of the two powers in heaven um and for claiming to do things like judge the world and raise the dead at the resurrection and for why his followers are praying to him and worshiping him and calling him God and the son of God and doing the same thing doing the exact same thing that Jesus does namely claiming to be one of the two powers in heaven and for his enemies to repeatedly accuse him of blasphemy ultimately sends him to death and then people who say the same thing like Steven uh also uh find themselves uh being executed And I would say that the best explanation of that is Jesus was claiming to be God that that's just me uh it's like if if if I met if I met like five if suppose I never heard a word from Alex but I meet like five of his biggest fans and they say "Yeah we love Alex he's the Messiah." And then I run into five of his harshest critics and they say "Man we can't stand that dude Alex he thinks he's the Messiah." Even if I never heard a word from Alex I'd be thinking he was claiming to be something like that and that's what's giving his friends and enemies that indication likewise with Jesus even if I didn't have any words of Jesus if I just know if I just knew these guys were were uh people were being put to death for making these kinds of claims and that his followers are going around worshiping him and praying to him I would think he's saying something now uh Alex thinks that apparently thinks that the best explanation is this divine uh name bearing scenario if so Jesus did a really terrible job of getting that message across and uh it doesn't seem like anyone really got the point unless we do some creative interpretations of some passages alex again quotes Exodus to say that uh that the the angel of the Lord is just some representative who bears the name again I quoted the exact same book he quoted where Yahweh says that I'm not going along with you anymore which is Yahweh saying that he was the angel of the Lord who was guiding them um he says that his view is that Jesus is presented as the ideal servant of God the ideal servant of God convinces people to bow down and worship him and pray to him and so on this is this is what the ideal servant of God would do that's a that's a very strange ideal servant of God since that's kind of precisely what you shouldn't do if you're not God uh he says that proano can mean bow down yes you the word procaneo depends on the cont if it's a religious context it refers to worship if it's but you can yes someone can just bow down to you out of respect and that would that would be you can bow down to a normal human but guess what we have clearly clearly religious context in some of these passages for instance Matthew 14:33 they are freaked out those who are in the boat worshiped him saying truly you are the son of God that's a different sort of context than I want to ask you for a favor and I want to bow down out of respect as for Philippians 2 uh he he it sounded like he was uh Dun's Dun's theory that this is just saying that when it says who was in very nature God it's actually it's actually the form of God but this is just saying that he's a regular he was a a human being a human being and since he found himself as a human being like we're all the image of God he humbled himself and therefore he was eventually exalted and so on uh this just it just doesn't work let me just read it who being in very nature God or just you can just make up a translation say image of God for for fun who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage yes that can mean sees it can uh also mean used to his advantage you look at what makes sense in context did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness the the decision to humble himself is before is is what led to him being made in human likeness this isn't a human being who's sitting around going "Hey I'm in the image of God you know I could strive to be like God you know like like Adam did but I'm going to humble myself instead." This is a divine being humbling himself by becoming a human being and then being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death even death on a cross therefore God exalted in the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father alex seems to think that if you're a a human being and you humble yourself in this way that God can just exalt you to to the status of of Yahweh and apply these passages that are just Yahweh when when Yahweh says there there's no one there's no one else but me that's what's being quoted there from Isaiah as for curios curios um Alex says well well what would they be using they would be using the Septuagent the Greek translation yeah and they went to a passage they they they used the formulation curios curios which is specifically referring to Yahweh that's what Jesus uses he's quoting curios curios he's calling himself curios curios the only other use of that is the septuagent where it refers to adoni so why is Jesus using that and again I only brought up that point because he he brought up the point about the Septuagent and using it to interpret the claims of Christ so I said "Fine let's go with it." And we got in Luke and therefore that's him claiming to be Yahweh was Jesus a bad communicator he says "Ah but Jesus wasn't clear and he uh veiled his statements." So yes I grant all of that jesus was a careful communicator he was careful about how he communicated certain things he tend he tried to unveil certain things over time when people were ready for it that's not that's not what I consider a bad communicator i consider all of that part of being a very good communicator if you're saying that the people who all heard Jesus all got it wrong somehow or that we we don't really have uh the records of the people who somehow got it right that his friends got it wrong because they continue and they build their church around him and his enemies are sentencing him to death um I would say that's a really really really bad communicator and that just does not line up if everyone is concluding the same thing about this guy that he's claiming to be God that he's claiming to be one of the two powers in heaven the best explanation is not some idea that no one got the best explanation is very simple he was making those claims that's why we have all this evidence all right all right check check check check check okay so now Alex is going to do his second six-minute rebuttal okay i suppose I really want to nail down on this worship point since I was kind of getting at that at the end and David says "Yeah procoo can mean just simply bowing down." But in a religious context it means something else like what do you mean how do you know that without begging the question like I say let's actually evaluate that's what I was sort of going through how many times proca worship is given to Jesus in the New Testament or at least that Jesus accepts it in the New Testament it doesn't happen once in Luke's gospel it basically doesn't happen once in Mark because it happens twice and one of these is a demon and one of these which I suppose is an interesting thing to explore in itself but one of these is then simply mocking Jesus because he's the king why would they consider mocking him with proso worship if he was claiming to be king of the Jews because that's what proco means if procaneo can mean actually worship of the kind that latruo usually gets at that is worship cultic worship of a religious figure as David suggests here's a riddle for you why isn't it given to Jesus after Jesus ascends why isn't it that people are offering procao worship after Jesus ascends except at the moment of his ascension at the end of Luke's gospel which as I as I say is contested in our manuscript tradition anyway why not because it refers to a physical action because it's not referring to worship of the kind that David wants it to be in this context in John's gospel which we didn't get to how many times does Jesus accept worship the answer again is once just once it happens in John chapter 9 this is the man who was born blind who I mentioned earlier in verse 38 he says to Jesus "Lord I believe." And he worshiped him except he doesn't say so in papyrus 75 he doesn't say so in codec sinaticus doesn't say so in codeex washing tonianis in other words this verse isn't present in our earliest manuscripts we're pretty confident that there are elements of the gospels which are later interpolations most famously the ending of Mark's gospel which is not in a manuscript and the story of the adulterous woman let he who is without sin cast the first stone which are not in our early manuscripts i'm interested as to whether David thinks that there are things in the gospels which didn't actually happen either because they're recorded incorrectly or because they are later interpolations but at least in this case of worship it seems to be a later interpolation but at best we've got one instance of Jesus accepting worship in John's gospel and our manuscript evidence seems to suggest that there's none if worshiping Jesus is supposed to be some indication of his divinity then why is it only Matthew's gospel who seems to mention anything to do with worship and uses a term when there's another one available to indicate cultic religious worship to someone who's divine yet he chooses a word which just means physical prostration before someone who has a higher authority like I don't know maybe the Messiah like the disciples bow down and worship Jesus at what point do you think they began to get the picture that he was God they knew that he was the Messiah for a long time but I genuinely don't know when David thinks they began to realize that this person was God do you think there might be an instance of them offering procal worship to Jesus before they'd fully realize that i think so because procao worship is a physical action that's given to people who are of a higher authority just to belabor this point in the Septuagent here are some examples of procao worship lot worships two angels in Genesis abraham worships the Hittites isaac blesses Jacob to have all the nations on earth worship him in Genesis jacob worships Esau joseph's brothers worship him abigail worships David's servants in 1 Samuel Saul worships the dead Samuel in 1 Samuel the sons of prophets worship Elijah in 2 Kings david worships the temple in Psalm 5 all the people of Israel worship King David in 1 Chronicles this is the same term procano if David wants to suggest that sometimes this proc worship can mean cultic religious worship even though there's another word available that people use to mean that but it's not being used in this instance for some reason i want to know what that distinction is and how we can know which kind of worship is being given without simply begging the question and saying that well when it's given to Jesus it's obviously of the religious kind otherwise as far as I'm concerned this worship point is essentially bunk some of you might be thinking hold on a second in the temptation in the desert Satan asks Jesus to worship him and what does Satan say do you know he says "Worship it is written worship God and serve him only." So you're only supposed to worship God and people say that this is an indication that any worship of anybody other than God would be immoral that interpretation cannot be the case firstly because it would condemn all of the people that I've just listed to be sinners including the entire assembly of Israel that can't be it let's look again at this passage jesus is quoting a passage which by the way he's actually changed in the Old Testament the passage that he's quoting says "Fear God rather than worship God." But besides the point the word only here qualifies not the word worship but the word serve worship God and serve him only worship here is procoo which we know that Jesus can't be saying only proaneo towards God because all of these people including people that Jesus talks about himself are offered proc worship indeed process worshiped uh is promised to all of you in revelation so we know that he can't mean only worship god in that sense but only qualifies the word serve worship god and serve him only what is the word serve which which Greek word is translated in this passage to serve does anybody know latruo cultic religious worship so this is a reaffirmation of point that proc worship is fine but latrua worship is something special that can only be be given to God the key text here is James Dun's um did the early Christians worship God and as he rightly points out there is no talk anywhere once in the entire New Testament of latruo worship being offered to Jesus why not all right okay so that concludes Alex's second rebuttal round we're going to move to open discussion all right all right all right well shall we spark it off gentlemen whatever you like let's do it open dialogue who would like to take the lead uh well I have some questions perhaps to ask David about his position on Jesus's relationship to the father with particular regards to the authority that he derives from the the father so one question for example why do you think that Jesus prays before raising Lazarus from the dead um the the Old Testament says that God is the God of all flesh if um if a divine being were to become incarnate as is claimed of Jesus and that divine being really became a flesh and blood human being like Jesus then um if he is if he's also had an eternal relationship with the father then I I don't know if I'd expect him to be an atheist when he entered into creation so I in other words in other words if if if the Christian picture is correct you've got father and son for all eternity son enters into creation um what's he going to be an atheist if he is going to if as part of it is if he's going to be the ideal human or something like that yeah and so the son of man one might say as far as uh as far as what Jesus is going to do um you would continue the eternal relationship that you've had with the father and you would do that through prayer so what I mean to say is could Jesus have have risen Lazarus from the dead of his own accord on his own authority i suppose yeah you suppose that all authority has been given to himself been given to him by God right which the way that I read that is that the father has delegated the authority that is rightfully his to Jesus and it's often said to me that Jesus raising people from the dead of his own authority is actually an indication of his divinity because we have Old Testament passages of people raising people from the dead like Elijah and Elisha and the point is always made that well they pray before they they rise from the dead jesus doesn't pray but before he raises Lazarus in Johnap 11 he looks upward and says,"Father I thank you for having heard me i know that you always hear me but I've said this for the sake of the crowd standing here so they may believe that you have sent me." And when he says this he cries out with a loud voice "Lazarus come out." So Jesus is not only praying before raising Lazarus but also saying that I always do this it's just I'm doing it right now publicly so there's no confusion that you're the one who sent me to do this and so even in instances where Jesus appears to perform miracles of his own accord such as calming the storm or indeed raising other people from the dead like the the widow's child he tells us here in John's gospel that he always is in communication with God beforehand but right now he's saying so publicly so that people will know that he sent him why does Jesus need to pray before he raises Lazarus from the dead um I mean this is the exact same chapter where Jesus declares himself the resurrection and the life that's right and it's in the same book where Jesus says that he's the one who raises the dead at the resurrection everyone who's in their graves will hear the voice of the son of God mhm and so uh if if you're if you're thinking that when we talk about Jesus we're thinking of him as some rogue deity who does things on his own I mean that's basically the the entire meaning of John chapter 5 john chapter 5 is basically one response to this um Jesus uh Jesus heals on the Sabbath and this freaks him out because they say "Hey what are you doing?" He says "Well the father's working until now i'm working too yeah and so since the father's working I get to work you all don't get to work i get to work and then they accuse him of claiming to be equal to God and then he explains it that it's a verse that Muslims use they say he says by my own self I can do nothing but if you look at what he's saying it's I can do nothing separately from the father but that's the same chapter where he claims that he's the final judge where he claims that he's the one who raises the dead at the resurrection and he explains it and says um for the father judges no one but has given all judgment to the son that all may honor the son just as they honor the father the only way you'd honor the son the same way you you honor the father is if they have the same nature and attributes you wouldn't honor anyone else like you honor God interesting do you believe that so Jesus is saying that the reason he's the one who judges everything is because is so that we honor him the same way we honor the father that doesn't that that sounds Do you believe do you believe that the father has a distinct loving relationship to the son compared to the loving relationship he has to all of us say yep only because I' I've heard you make this point before that he says that it's that word as is quite important what you just said so that he will honor uh so that they will honor me just as they honor the father that word just as is cathos which I mentioned earlier that's also used when Jesus says "So they will know that you have loved me just as you have loved them." So if we if we're going to be consistent in our usage of the term here if if Jesus saying like uh that they will honor you just as they'll honor me just as uh just as you honor the father then the loving relationship has to be treated in the same way right well I think you could say I'm trying to think if you say that you know I could say I love this person just as I love my wife and yeah you'd be right i could say well I just mean I love both of them but not in you know that wouldn't necessarily be saying I love that person exactly as I That's why there are two words in the Greek that's why there's like the word for no and finally I'm talking about you have to interpret words in context and what's what's the context of this it's Jesus jesus claims Jesus claims that that that since the father is working he's working also mhm and it's interesting because the discussion among the rabbis was does God work on does God work on the Sabbath and so Jesus is working so God works on the Sabbath because he's upholding and sustaining the universe therefore I get to work on the Sabbath as well and then hey you're claiming to be like they think he's claiming to be another God and he clarifies no no no by myself I can do nothing he points us he he points this out and in this context he's the final judge and so it's you will honor the son just as you honor the father there in context it would be very strange to say well I just mean honor me in some sense like you honor the father but not not in that way it's I mean the old testament Yahweh is the one who sets up his throne to judge jesus is the one who says all judgment is given to him given Yeah yeah and so if it's if all judgment is given to him and keep in mind the Old Testament Yahweh is the one who's going to judge and you're saying Yeah but it's given to Jesus and he says it's so that we honor him the same way we honor the father yeah okay so I want to talk about this Sabbath moment because this is quite important this is in John chapter 5 as well this whole episode sort of hinges on the idea that Jesus is working on the Sabbath he says "My father is working so am I." So your interpretation of this is to say that well my father in heaven that is God is working on the Sabbath so so am I therefore I'm God this story of Jesus working on the Sabbaths is reported in multiple gospels in Mark's gospel when he's found working on the Sabbath and the Pharisees say to him this is Mark chapter 2 look why are they doing that which is not lawful on the Sabbath what does Jesus say in response have you not heard what David did have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food and they enter the house of God and take the food which is not lawful on the Sabbath so Jesus justifies his breaking of the Sabbath by referring to another human being who also broke the Sabbath he then tells us that the Sabbath was made for mankind and not mankind for the Sabbath a very famous quote the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath bearing in mind that although the son of man is lord of the seven yes bear in mind that although in the in the Greek the definite article is given to Jesus when he uses the term son of man it's complicated by the fact that son of man without the definite article is just a way of saying human being so there are some scholars such as Morris Casey who believe that these son of man sayings have been corrupted at least some of them from originally saying a son of man or the son of man in the sense of just meaning a human being now why would that interpretation be correct here because Jesus says firstly when he's accused of breaking the Sabbath he says "Well David did the same thing was David sinning?" The implication is no which means it can't just be God who breaks the Sabbath he then says that the Sabbath was made for man humans not humans or man for the Sabbath therefore he says the word is therefore the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath if the son of man in some context just means a human being that's how early church fathers interpreted it for example in fact some of the early church fathers translated the son of man as the son of Mary because they thought it was Jesus indicating that he was the son of a human being and he was only born of Mary given that undertone for this phrase the son of man how else can I read this passage except Jesus saying "Yeah I'm working on the Sabbath." So did David and that wasn't wrong the Sabbath was made for mankind therefore mankind is Lord of the Sabbath if it's only God who can work on the Sabbath then why does Jesus appeal to David um you're you're you're talking about two completely different passages you're talking about this this situation and Jesus I was talking to a Jewish guy in Israel and he he was he's not a Christian but he said "Hey Jesus way won jesus way actually won jesus Jesus the way of Jesus won." Oh sure he he viewed Jesus as like a a religious reformer um sent against uh religious extremism and so on um there Jesus is talking about like preserving life and so on the accusation in John in John five is different but I'm I mean I'm I'm pointing to John because you you're going with John in John five he says the father's working and so he gets to work too that's right and again if you read this there's there's no way to interpret this as Jesus claiming to be some you know just another human being or something like that well I don't think Jesus is claiming to be just another human being but although we are talking about two different passages here if the reason that Jesus gives because bear in mind there are multiple ways to interpret this when he says "Well God's working so why not I?" There are multiple ways to interpret this either Jesus is again quite explicitly claiming to be God which again is quite mystifying given that this doesn't seem to provoke the same kind of reaction and if it's well recognized that God is the Lord of the Sabbath and Jesus is claiming himself as a title the son of man to be Lord of the Sabbath or in this instance just claiming the authority because God is working so so am I it's strange that it doesn't cause the same kind of fuss but the other interpretation is that Jesus is saying well if God can work on the Sabbath why not anybody else if God can work why not me and that just doesn't your interpretation just doesn't square with me with Mark's gospel i mean the question I asked is why does he refer to David in justifying talking about we're talking about John yes you can you can you can have you can have different reasons for doing things in different situations i mean as far as John so Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath the Jewish leaders began to persecute him in his defense Jesus said to them my father is always at his work to this very day and I too am working for this reason they tried all the more to kill him not only because he was breaking the Sabbath but was even calling God his own father making himself equal with God yes and so that's when Jesus goes and and if he's trying to say that if he's trying to say something about it's okay to break the Sabbath or you don't have to work on the Sabbath anymore or something like that it's a it's a strange direction to go in that he makes all these claims um he can do only what the father sees because whatever the father does the son also does for just as the father raises the dead and gives them life even so the son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it mhm the father judges no one but is entrusted all judgment to the son that all may honor the son just as they honor the father whoever does not honor the son does not honor the father that's when he goes on to say that he's the one who raises the dead a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the son of God and those who hear will live for as the father has life in himself so he has granted the son also to have life in himself and he has given him authority to judge because he is the son of man and then he goes on to say that uh the dead are going to be raised my point is zeroing in on one little point and saying ah well you know maybe this is just you're missing kind of the big picture this is but I'm noticing the words granted and given or authority there uh this idea that Jesus raises the dead is not exactly clear in John chapter 5 like if we if we look at the words that we're actually dealing with here the father judges no one but has entrusted all judgment to the son presumably the father could judge if he wanted to he's made a decision to entrust this to the son meaning that the son doesn't have this power necessarily if the son has this power necessarily it's not something that needs to be entrusted to him in the way that the father then would not have it he then says "Very truly I say to you whoever hears my word and believes him who has sent me has eternal life." And goes on to say that the dead will hear the voice of the son of God and those who hear will live the voice of the son of God yeah now he's the son of God right jesus that's right agreeing that he's claiming to be the son of God yeah so they'll hear his voice and they'll be raised from the dead but how do we like who is doing the raising here and how do you know um you wait you're you're saying we're going to hear people are going to So you're saying someone else is raising them god when they hear the voice of the son of God so they're dead they're just bones they hear the voice of the son of God and then someone else raises them for as the father has given has life in himself so he has granted the son to also have life in himself life in himself yes any power that Jesus has here is given to him by the father why is Jesus if God in need of being given this power by the father um you not you have the this is the exact same issue that you have in um in Daniel 7 where the uh the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven approaches the ancient of days and he is given authority glory and sovereign power so it's why is he being given authority and glory and sovereign power yeah but even before that it's the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven that's how he approaches but again it's Yahweh who comes with the clouds so he's Yahweh and then something happens and then he's he's given the son of man is Yahweh do you think that that was how Daniel 7 was interpreted by anybody before Daniel saw a vision that's right but this this is this is this is one of the issues as far as the this is one of the issues that comes up in um in the two power the two powers in heaven because it's again Yahweh is the only one who comes with the clouds in the Old Testament and here you have the son of man who receives uh worship and so on and is worshiped by all nations and but notice he approaches he approaches and then he's he's given authority glory and sovereign power mhm but if you if you if you line that up with the creed in Philippians if you line that up with John 1 and so on you get you get kind of a big picture and you can you can take like John 1:1 in the beginning was the word the word was with God the word was God and then the word became flesh and dwelt among us that's after all things are created through him and you find the same thing in Philippians 2 early Christian creed uh when it's uh in your relationships with with one another have the same mindset as Christ Jesus who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage um rather he made himself nothing taking the very nature of a servant so these are you you have someone who is in nature God over here someone who is the word who through whom all things are created and then enters creation and if you so then lives as Jesus dies and I would I would interpret it since you have uh the ending in Matthew where Jesus approaches and he's worshiped there and he says that all authority in heaven and earth has been given to him m so the idea is he becomes a servant he's in very nature God he takes on the nature of a servant and then he lives as a servant and the the irony of the statement where where he says the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many the irony there is he's the son of man he's supposed to be served in by all and he says that he came to serve and so he's living as a servant during this life then he dies he rises from there's there's a lot here right yeah i I want to go right back because we started with this idea of the son of man coming on the clouds meaning that he's Yahweh do you think that's how Daniel interpreted his vision do you think that's how I believe Daniel saw a vision and recorded his vision do you think that's how the Sanhedrin interpreted Daniel 7 when Jesus comes for his trial and he says and he quotes Daniel 7 and says that you'll see the son of man riding on the clouds of heaven do you think that the problem there was that Jesus was claiming to be God and that's something that no human being can do because Daniel 7 is part of the Jewish scripture they were expecting the coming of this son of man so if it's obvious that the son of man was going to be Yahweh then the Sanhedrin should have expected that the coming son of man would have been Yahweh they might have thought that Jesus wasn't him but do you think that the Sanhedrin were expecting whoever the rightful son of man was who was to come would be identical to Yahweh and if not why did they not read that into the passage as obviously as you think that they should have done people were basically confused by these passages that's the impression you get they go in all sorts of different directions and oh this is referring to the Messiah no this is referring to some sort of angel no this is referring to this no that's I'm talking about what the text says the son of man comes with the clouds of heaven all before that all before that it's always Yahweh who comes on the clouds and so if you were looking at that and you didn't if you if you didn't have the idea of wait a minute it it just can't be it it's impossible that that is referring to God because you've got the ancient of days right there if you're not reading I and really I I don't know I don't even know what to do if you're saying that I'm not talking about you i'm talking about anyone if you're reading that and going "No it doesn't seem like this is God he comes with the clouds of heaven but then he's worshiped by all nations and has an ever an everlasting kingdom." Mhm if you're just reading that if if put it this way if you didn't have the ancient of days in the picture and you're reading this description comes in the cloud of heavens worship all nations say obviously God yes the the the mystery comes in the mystery comes in when it's wait a minute we've got the ancient of days here so this is sounding like That's right two divine beings and we just can't real quick so we we've gone through about 20 minutes david are you comfortable staying here or do you want to ask Alex some questions now we we just of course the point was or is in the christoologgical dispute that Jesus is accused of blasphemy at his trial and that this is evidence that he was claiming to be God through his identification with the divine son of man because that's how it's interpreted by the high priest because he accuses him of blasphemy does that mean that the high priest was expecting the son of man to be Yahweh himself do you think that that is the interpretation that the high priest had of the Danielic vision of the son of man i would say they would obviously have interpreted the uh that that passage in Daniel or claimed to be the son of man in in that sense if you were just if you're just saying hey I'm a son of man I think they'd be fine with it um well yeah of course in in the Aramaic in which Daniel 7 is written it's one like a son of man one like bar nash which just means one like a human being yeah so you you'd clarify that and that's the point like like a human being and yet he comes with the clouds of heaven so he's he's coming with clouds of heaven he's Yahweh and yet he's like the son of a man that's right you understand history as far as as far as how they would interpret it they could have a range of interpretations that we don't know what this means but we know that the the guy who built my cousin's table in Nazareth should not be making this claim sure so is that enough to be So suppose that their interpretation was a a messianic vision of Daniel 7 this carpenter claiming to be the Messiah would that have been enough to accuse him of blasphemy claiming to be the Messiah is not a not a death sentence all all kinds of So the reason I'm pressing this point is because when I say did the high priest believe that the son of man was going to be Yahweh himself i think that's quite implausible and I think you recognize that in saying well look there are loads of ideas that they could have had was quite confusing but if Jesus wouldn't be accused of blasphemy for merely claiming to be the Messiah if you had a messianic interpretation he wouldn't be accused of blasphemy for claiming to embody the nation of Israel if you have the idea that the son of man represents Israel which is another view it has to be Israel comes on the clouds of it has to be and is worshiped by all nations i'm not that's my interpretation i'm saying that in the history of the interpretation of Daniel 7 that has been a popular interpretation of course the four beasts which come before represent different nations and the one like the son of man is Israel but the question I'm asking you is surely you recognize that if the idea is that claiming to be the Messiah or something like that is not enough for a death sentence that's right then what Jesus has to have done in that trial in order to get a death sentence must have been to say something that the high priest immediately interpreted as him claiming to be Yahweh that means that he has to expect that the coming son of man would be Yahweh himself i understand what the high priest thought of Daniel's vision one you're you're you just made an awesome case for me right if he's just thinking of if he's just thinking of the the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven uh as the Messiah then oh okay this guy claimed to be the Messiah let's uh let's uh maybe we have to deal with the Romans or something like that but it's not it's not uh it's not this uh terrier blasphemy sort of thing um what you find in that passage people struggle with that again the reason the reason is because it sounds like it's talking about Yahweh when the ancient of days is Yahweh that's it so you come up you try to you try to explain it in other ways could this be the Messiah that does it just doesn't fit could this be the nation of Israel it doesn't fit there all these interpretations but it's clear if a guy says "You will see the son of man coming with a uh at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven." Yeah doesn't seem like they were taking that to just be a claim to be the Messiah that interpretation and and you're right that I'm bolstering the case here that Jesus must have been claiming to be Yahweh what I'm saying is that if your position is correct and that is the only thing that he could have been accused of blasphemy for then you have to presuppose that the high priest had that interpretation of Daniel 7 which which just seems so implausible to me that that's what they thought Daniel 7 meant that that's what they thought at that time that it meant that this son of man who they did expect to come would be Yahweh himself is is that what you think they they thought because you have to for this to run i don't have the records of the high priest if he says "This guy just claimed to be the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven." And again this if you just read the if you just read the passage if you just read in Daniel 7 if you didn't have the ancient of days there it would be indisputable this talking about this talking about God but you've got the ancient of days there so what's the context of this first century they're dealing with this two powers in heaven issue and they don't know how to deal with it they're coming they're coming up with all sorts of explanations for what they for what this second power is and then Jesus claims to be one of them when does the two powers in heaven uh like idea heresy if you want to call it that now like when does that begin to emerge uh BC what evidence do you have of the popularity of the 2 heaven idea in second temple Judaism you well I mean the the main discussion that's that's used like in uh in um uh in Seagal's in Seagull's book is the the later rabbitic commentaries but so you have yeah in like the late 1 and 2 century right yeah that's when that's when they're talking about because it's a big deal uh yeah that well that's when that's when Jewish orthodoxy is is forming so in other words it's a relatively fringe position beforehand no it's it's it was fairly popular what's your evidence for uh as far as I understand it's it's a relatively fringe position okay so you have one you have one you have all these issues that are in the Old Testament but then you have the the Targums you have the Tarans that are that are um they're they're putting Old Testament passages into Aramaic and so on and they start giving some interesting uh some interesting translations of uh of some of these passages and so on and treating there's a lot of other issues like even with even with the name and with the word and that's why boy that's why Borieran says the ideas the the ideas are already there because you have passages where they're in where they're interpreting uh the word where they're interpreting uh the word of God as a personal agent and so on so the idea is that uh that uh that would you know here's drawing a parallel between that and and John's gospel here's James James McGrath on on the two powers the evidence surveyed thus far gives no support for dating the origins of the controversy even to the second century it is of course possible that the controversy did arise in the second century but it has not yet been sufficient had sufficient impact to leave any clear or explicit trace in the traditions and literature from that period um you when you ha when you have when you have the rabbis forming Jewish orthodoxy they're clearly responding to the issue of the two powers in heaven yeah when's that happening yeah that's later but they're talking about things that things that happened earlier but because remember what we're talking about here is the idea of the son of man that the high priests would have had at Jesus's trial if the 2,00 heaven idea is something that only emerges in the late 1st and second century no that's that's when it's being labeled a heresy that's when they're declaring it a heresy and they're set they're setting out what I'm asking is is why is it that if this is already a controversy that has emerged and is extent to the ex to to the extent that the high priest believes it then why is it leaving no trace in our traditions and literature from that period why is it why in other words what traditions do you have from what what commentaries are you talking about from the first century well that's a that's a silence thing because I'm I don't have commentary I could what commentaries do I have that don't mention it that's a bit of a broad question and I'm asking what to do if you're if the rabbis are talking about these earlier controversies and they're dealing with because you have you have the Christians went went one way with it you had the Gnostics became an issue for the Gnostics because the Gnostics interpreted they believed in the two powers in heaven and they said they're basically in conflict the two powers are in conflict and so the Gnostics ran with that and then you had uh Jewish mystics Jewish mystics who were running with the issue do you think the Gnostics believed in the two powers in heaven heresy as as you've described it they believe they believed in the two powers they went they went in a completely different direction so they so the Christian direction was father was father and son you've got father and son you've got son of man coming with the clouds in ancient of days you've got um God and the word of God you've got Paul calling u the father God and calling Jesus Lord and so on so you see it all over there they have the two powers but the two powers are in harmony and have always been so yeah the Gnostics believed in the two powers and they believe that they're in they're believe that they're in conflict and so then you so anyway the point okay look I and I I really don't know here but I'm I think that this hinges on the evidence that the two powers in heaven idea is a popular enough controversy in the time of Jesus's in Jesus's lifetime that the high priest seek would have believed it and and as far as I can see the you can tell what he believed by how he reacts so so you do think that this is what he believed then like you're committing yourself to that view in other words that this is the view that the high priest had of Daniel 7 that the son of man would be Yahweh that even before Jesus came along this high priest must have read Daniel 7 no idea he have a range of ideas so you just say you can't have no idea because if your if your whole claim is that Jesus couldn't have been accused of blasphemy for anything other than claiming to be God i've never said that in this instance like what other interpretation of Daniel 7 do you think would would this Let me put it this way what interpretation other than the one that I've just described of Daniel 7 could the high priest have that would cause him to accuse Jesus of blasphemy based on the words that he said as as far as we you can tell in commentary they can't figure out what it means right and so the question is how is the high priest interpreting what Jesus is saying so how are they interpreting what Jesus is saying and he Jesus is identifying himself as the son of man who they already expected to come from Daniel 7 and they interpret that as him claiming to be Yahweh it really looks like that i think that's what you have to say right you have to say that they think he's claiming to be Yahweh but in order to say that you have to believe that that is how he interpreted Daniel 7 look no I don't he could have a range of interpretations and like like put it this way look at what the high priest is doing when he says "Don't keep us in suspense any longer are you the Christ the son of the the son of the blessed?" He's asking for clarification on what he's saying what are you saying what are you telling us okay so bearing in mind that one interpretation of Daniel 7 throughout history even after the advent of Christianity is that Daniel 7 is a messianic prophecy about the coming Messiah if Jesus is asked "Are you the Messiah?" And he responds by quoting Daniel 7 if one of the interpretations of Daniel 7 is that it's talking about the Messiah then why would they not just think he was claiming to be the Messiah they he obviously didn't give them them them that impression if they they said he deserves death for it and by the way by the way this is connected you can you can actually tell what happens i mean you brought up the passage in Acts 7 i mean Stephen Steven is giving his entire case for belief in Jesus as the Messiah they never get violent then he rebukes them the harshest way you can possibly all your you you killed all the your ancestors killed all the prophets and you guys killed the Messiah mhm if they're just going to get ticked off at rebuke or insults or something like that that would have been the time to do it it's when he says "I see the son of man." It's when I see the son of man that's when they cover their ears they cover their ears they charge him and they kill him so you can do the same thing why are they inter why why is it why why are they interpreting as why aren't they interpreting that as he's just saying that Jesus is the Messiah that's exactly right yeah why do they think that we got we we got to we got to move to to Q&A we've gone way over the open dialogue so if you have a question line up over there while I let you guys finish your thoughts um guys hey oh gosh two all right so check it out right here where Ray is right here where Ray is you guys go to Ray Rock right here in the very front check check check yes we get four minutes on the on the clock for the conclusions all right in my opening statement I point out you you basically have a controversy um we know that there's a controversy uh going on and we see how we see how Christians are responding to that and basically up until orthodoxy defines the uh two powers issue as a heresy um you had a wide range of views a wide range of uh interpreting these various texts and so on it's pretty clear what happens when Jesus comes along and we looked I actually qu it's interesting I quoted multiple passages in Mark and I quoted uh Q as far as Jesus saying that um all things have been handed over to him by his father no one knows the son except the father no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him you have I quoted those because I assumed that that he was going to reject John and so I was quoting the uh the the some of our earlier material and then the creed in Philippians and so on where know if you noticed but everyone seems to be doing the same thing and it's the same issue that arises in the Old Testament you have Yahweh sending Yahweh you have Yahweh sending the angel of the Lord but the angel of the Lord is Yahweh and Yahweh says that he's the angel you have the uh ancient of days and the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven so you have these issues and people are confused about it but then you look to the New Testament they're doing the exact same thing that was going on in the Old Testament but now they're defining it as father son God and the word but the word is is also God um Paul saying God the father is God and Jesus is Lord um and they also bring in the the son of man in the ancient of days with uh with Jesus and so on so you've got all these pastors they're all doing the same thing it's kind it's pretty clear it's pretty clear what's going on and the question is we look we look at what Jesus says he sounds like he's claiming to be one of the two powers in heaven in multiple ways we look at what Jesus does he's claiming to do things like judge the world and raise the dead at the resurrection we look at what his followers say uh we look at what his followers do we look at what his enemies say we look at what his enemies do and everything we can look at gives the indication that this guy was making claims that cause people to either uh worship him and start praying to him and doxologies and so on or saying that this guy has to die and if that's all just a miscommunication this is like beyond anything else you want to say Jesus wasn't the greatest communicator and so on because he slowly unveiled things for people who weren't ready to hear it uh that's very different from saying everyone got the message horribly horribly wrong and so I just wanted to conclude here with uh the last minute uh wanted to revisit the uh famous quote from CS Lewis famous quote from CS Lewis um that the trillemma the problem with the trillemma was that it didn't rule out uh it didn't include certain other options so it's presented as Lord liar lunatic but you've got the legend possibility that it doesn't include what if all this is later legendary development well we've seen that can't be the case because everyone concludes this it's all over the place it's in our earliest material we can trace this back to two year within two years of the formation of the church when Paul is persecuting the church what's he doing he was persecuting people for calling on the name of Jesus the way they're calling on the name of the Lord this means that the early church um had this view and the other option would be Jesus is a terrible communicator and everyone misunderstood him and that I I just have to say again given how Jesus taught I can't believe that everyone was horribly misunderstanding and so when we rule those out I think we can agree with CS Lewis who said "I'm trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him i'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher but I do not accept his claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say a man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher he would either be a lunatic on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg or else he would be the devil of hell you must make your choice either this man was and is the son of God or else a mad man or something worse you can shut him up for a fool you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher or a terrible communicator he has not left that open to us he did not intend to all right sure alex for a minute closing all right for a minute closing from Alex yeah i mean there I guess there are a few important things to say first is that I totally forgot in that entire section that I really really did want to hear what David thinks about Jesus implying all throughout John chapter 17 that the relationship he has with the father is the same as the relationship the father and he wish to have with all Christian believers i find it quite stunning that when specifically asked to clarify his christoologgical position he describes his relationship with the father in terms that he then attributes to first his disciples and then the rest of Christian believers absent everything else that we've been saying that alone should be pretty stunning what can it possibly mean for Jesus to describe his relationship to the father and then say "In the same way that I'm in him and he's in me I want you all to be in us so we can all be one all of us." What can that possibly mean we didn't even get to discuss this maybe some people in the Q&A have some answers but on its own that is enough to raise some serious question marks of course a lot of David's case has relied on this two powers heresy and we were sort of getting a bit caught in the weeds there about the dating i read a quote from James McGrath which I didn't finish because it's quite long but he goes on to say and this is in uh the only true God early Christian monotheism in its Jewish context he says of course conversely the absence of evidence for the existence of the heresy in this period surveyed so far does not prove that it did not yet exist of course that's true however in view of the clear palemic against two powers in later writings and the complete absence of such pmic in earlier writings this at least strongly suggests the possibility that the two powers only became an issue for whatever reason in the period after those documents were put in their present form in other words this two powers discussion doesn't seem to crop up at all until it's too late to have influenced the high priest and I want to know why I suppose that's the case i want to know why it is that Jesus also says that the glory he receives from the father will be given to the disciples and given to everybody else i want to know why Jesus is given the authority to forgive sins which at least is interpreted by his Jewish opponents as something only God can do and then gives it to his disciples the same authority at the end of chap John chapter 20 saying as the father has sent me I'm now sending you what is going on here why is Jesus passing on all of these divine prerogatives in unity to his disciples in precisely the way that he got them from the father if any of these instances any of these divine and the same thing with judgment by the way which David keeps coming back to which God also delegates to other people again we haven't heard much response on these ideas of it's not just Jesus who gets to judge but Jesus also delegates that judgment the example I gave was delegating judgment of the 12 tribes of is Israel to his disciples which is something we're pretty sure he historically actually said because he says that the 12 of you will sit on 12 thrones judging the tw 12 tribes of Israel meanwhile Judas is currently present so it's likely he actually said this because it's not something a later Christian writer would make up there are Christian interpretations as to why he would have still said 12 of course but it's an unnatural thing for someone to have made up so we think he actually said it he's delegating his judgment why is Jesus taking all of these divine prerogatives and giving them to human beings if he's more than just a human being himself but of course he's not just a human being qua his position he's a very special kind of human being someone who according to the uh the non-gosspel New Testament sources is exalted given the name above every other name interesting implication for the the divine name bearing model by the way what is the best interpretation is all I basically have to ask of all of these points i mean we got quite caught caught up in there in the in the nature of blasphemy and what Jesus could have been claiming again I'll just press the point that if you want to accept that Jesus couldn't have been accused of blasphemy for anything other than claiming to be Yahweh and yet all he really did was quote Daniel 7 then you have to believe that at the time of Jesus's trial it was popular enough within Jewish thought to expect that the coming son of man as prophesied in Daniel 7 would be Yahweh himself i don't see any evidence for that at all so for these considerations I think it a suspicious reading of the New Testament to say that Jesus was claiming identity with Yahweh all right before we go to the first question I got one question for Alex and and I would love to hear your answer on this i'm going throw a monkey wrench in this whole thing um you've brought this up before the idea in Eastern Orthodoxy of theosis or deification does that solve the dilemma that you're referring to uh theosis the process of humans attaining likeness to and union with God participating in the divine energies uh divine nature and experiencing community with the holy if we're adding the Eastern Orthodox position which is within the realms of orthodoxy as Protestants would probably call that glorification right they're giving very specific language your dilemma is Jesus is God and then he's given this god-like authority to his disciples could you concede potentially that that solves the dilemma only if that also describes how Jesus relates to his own father because of Constantly Jesus is using the word cathos or cathos cathos which means just as in the same way as so sure maybe this is talking about a kind of elevation of humans to share in the likeness of God in in in some other kind of way but deification yeah deification but then Jesus would have to see himself in the same way which is in so many words what I'm trying to say Jesus was in fact doing so yes okay cool all right we're going to go to questions um so uh let's All right we have got it we're gonna get through this real quick we got a question from Avery all right oh hold the mic okay all right for sure uh what's going on guys so this is a question for Alex man how you doing man hey um you mentioned God logic yes yes sir you mentioned uh in Hebrews 1 where you know God is speaking you know God uh spoke to our you know you know uh through prophets now he speaks to us through his son and you're saying where was Jesus then you know back then he should have been active and so you know regarding Hebrews I want just want to read you this and get your thoughts on this okay it's Hebrews 11 regarding Moses it says by faith Moses and I'm going just skip down to 25 and 26 for time choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin he considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt for he was looking to the reward so how is it that Moses can be considering Christ's disapproval if Christ wasn't around for him to disapprove yeah that is a great question so Christ there he regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as greater value than the treasures of Egypt because he was looking ahead to his reward now that's something which I I think yeah I I think it's a good point i I mean of course I can offer a christoologgical interpretation of this which sort of says that Christ is promised as the redeemer of mankind and we're looking at this in retro where where's he gone oh there you are we're looking just dropped it and left and I suppose we're we're looking at this in retrospect and he regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ yeah I do I do think that in this instance Hebrews is probably presenting Jesus as I don't know about the angel of Yahweh but certainly we're looking at a high christologology in in Hebrews yeah so close yeah yeah yeah i see what you're saying all right let's go to the next question cuz we want to go he's so close guys but I I I have no I I for what it's worth I have no problem saying that Hebrews has a high christologology uh that that's not that's kind of that's kind of not an issue to me but I think it is interesting to suggest that as a retort to the idea of the angel of Yahweh being Jesus i think that is an excellent point yeah yeah great job all right um uh we got a question for David Wood real quick gentlemen thank you for a wonderful debate um Dr would uh regarding the I am statements of Jesus in the Gospel of John the most palpable powerful divine statements by Christ why do you believe that they are omitted from Mark from Q from Matthew and Luke our four earliest gospels and then John comes along and these statements are present in John and missing from all of our other sources did I bring up I am statements who brought them up that's the question it it it is fascinating if you walk in and you say "All right I'm going to quote all these passages in John." They go "Ah it's too late it's the latest source you can't trust that it's uh clearly made up later and so on." And so you say "Okay let me just go with the earliest material go Q Mark and Paul." And then it's what what about John that's uh very interesting so I can't quote John but they can quote John these are these are uh these are awesome times um uh one I I think the I think the uh I think the synoptic gospel writers are focusing on different theological issues um and so in in in Mark for instance you have the you have the announcement you have the announcement that John the Baptist is preparing the way for Jesus but he actually quotes uh Isaiah that the messenger is going to prepare the way for the Lord and so if you look if you look at how it unfolds it's raising all these questions who is this guy who says he can forgive sins this guy calls him this guy says that he's the Lord of the Sabbath u you you you do have you do have an I am statement uh there in Mark 6:50 but there are p there are passages where it could just be it could just be translated as as it is I which is why I don't point to these but they are they are there and that's the context where it would make sense um because this is this is a this is a really powerful religious moment for them so you could interpret it that way but since uh since it's kind of ambiguous I don't but as far as far as why material is quoted in John that's not quoted in other gospels again I think they're focusing on different issues you look at Mark it's very action-based jesus went here did this jesus went here there and did that um and yet you have it um unfolding to who Jesus is claiming to be um he event he eventually gets to the point where once his followers grant that he's the Messiah then he starts modifying people's expectations of what the Messiah is that's when you have him saying "Well how does David call the Messiah Lord if he's just the son of David?" And then you eventually get to the trial and it's this guy has to die but this is just Jesus went here and did this it's not focusing a lot on Jesus teaching and then you get Matthew he takes the same material but he includes uh he includes some long sermons and so on so he's including that material um Luke focuses more on parables and so on and John just focuses John just focuses more on personal encounters with Jesus that's why you get his interactions with uh Nicodemus and the woman at the well and uh Mary and Martha and Lazarus focusing on personal encounters and some of the christoologgical claims but one of the mistakes people make is saying oh these and this lots of scholars make this mistake is John must be late because of all this this highris high christologology and christoologgical statement it doesn't make any sense because we know when Paul was writing and you can't say John is somehow has a higher christologology than what you find in Paul so we know the we know the extremely high christologology is very very early um but yeah I think I think the writers are focusing on on different things all right I'm going try to sneak in two real quick here's a quick one hey Steven Nelson from Cross Bible um I have a question about Philippians 2 6-7 is it about the Greek you both argued about it yeah uh you you use different translations of the Greek word morphi so on one side we have the translation of form and on the other side we have the translation of nature now nature's is coming from the NIV who being in the very nature in very nature God and then take the NASB for Morphe who as he already existed in the form of God and Morpheu and then he takes on the form of a servant morphidulu so can you guys justify why you prefer those specific translations that you used of the Greek word Morphe in the Christ hymn in Philippians 2 let's start with Alex sure um so I was the context in which I think I brought that up unless I'm misremembering is James Dunn's interpretation of the passage so I suppose I'm trying to make that passage make sense in in light of my view um it could be wrong it could be the wrong idea it could mean existing in the form of God in the sense of being like an exalted being uh exalted to the to the level of God that might be the case i don't exactly have a preference to me the question of the question of Paul's christologology is secondary to the question of Jesus claiming to be God of course it is interesting why Paul might have a high christologology although that that itself is of course debated um but I think it's an interesting idea to explore but I'm happy for the sake of argument to just grant that Paul had a high christology so I don't know which is the best interpretation i think you would be a much better person to to to inform and in fact I'd like to know your opinion i I spoke to this this chap earlier and and you sort of you run a biblical Greek cross comparison uh website so I I would love to know what your interpretation of the verse is or the word I mean morphe um yeah as yeah that was asked to both of us I think but uh as far as yeah I mean the morphe would the most obvious translation would be like form or or shape or something like that what the NIV writers are doing is saying if someone's in the form of God what are you what are you saying if I say he was in the form of God then this happened um sounds like you're saying somehow in nature God and so that's their interpret that that's the interpretation i think that's good so I'm I'm fine i think that's the meaning and therefore the NIV the NIV frequently translates according to the meaning and not like a a literal definition but if someone's in the form of God um I think it makes sense to say um in nature God what doesn't make sense is what Dun does is he takes it as like this means the image of God and it it just doesn't make sense with the with the rest of the passage something that is worth pointing out I suppose is that the same word morphe is used in the long ending of Mark where Jesus appears in a different form to two of them so if morphe is supposed to mean sort of essence as in the morphe of God meaning like having the same sort of essence as God if that's what it's supposed to mean then it's unclear why the writers of the long ending of Mark would say that he appeared to two other people in a different morphe it seems to maybe imply no that makes perfect sense if I say someone changes appearance or something like that then that makes perfect sense if I say someone is in the form of of God what could that possibly mean what what does it mean to be in the form of God that's what they're saying what does it mean to be in the form of God you have to be there's got to be something there's got to be something about being a nature God what else is in the form of God i can understand what if I if I could form I know what it would mean to change into the form of that guy i don't know what it would be to change in the form of God if Dun's interpretation is correct which I don't know if it is but I think it's an interesting one to consider then Morphe in that context is talking about being made in the image of God and so to be in the form of God means to be made in the image of God and so to appear someone in a different form means to look different perhaps it seems perfectly consistent in other words I don't think it just makes no sense because that's before he makes himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made into yeah that's the problem i think that's problem with with Dun's interpretation here but it's not a problem with the word which we can discuss that if you like as far as the as far as far as the translation totally fine in the form of God and then made himself nothing uh it depends on how deep the form goes but the the key is that in verse 7 he takes on the form of a servant so he starts out in a divine form and then descends into taking his human form which I think is what David was getting at as well right well thank you thank you excellent i'm going to sneak this last one in here sure fine by me appreciate it so um this one's for Alex primarily okay so in the Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 38b there's a discussion a rabbitic discussion about Daniel chapter 7 and they're asking about the verse I looked till thrones plural were placed says uh uh one throne is for him and one throne is for David this is the statement of Rabbi Aka Rabbi Yose said to him aka blah blah blah rather the correct interpretation is that both thrones are for God as one throne is for justice and the other is for mercy so why would the rabbis cuz You're asking about what did the high priest interpret the passage to mean so so why would the later rabbis of the second century or of the late 1st century have come up with an interpretation saying the son of man is God after the advent of Christianity right okay so so the passage says that there are two this is from Sanhedrin right yes that there are two thrones one for justice one for mercy yes and this was this is referring to the the rabbitic uh concept of hamidot the two uh the two forms of god uh justice and mercy elohim and Adonai sure okay so in this interpretation which is Jesus and which is the father uh well I if what I mean to say is if this is the interpretation in mind you need to clarify your point which is the father and which is Jesus justice or mercy which is which no no no i this is this is a this is I mean no no i'm I'm simply asking I'm simply asking cuz cuz you said that there's there you said it was implausible to suggest that the high priest would have interpreted that the son of man is say what you said at the beginning first about who who said what and what what the response was so Rabbi Aka said uh one throne is for the holy one and the other is for David meaning the messiah and then Rabbi Jose rebukes him and says no no no both thrones the ancient of days and the son of man are for God so that would be identifying the son of man as God i see and so the son of man in this instance is mercy and god is justice or is it the other way around it's I don't that's all Rabbi Yay says but he then says that he then explains what the two thrones are for right what does he say the two thrones are for he says one one is for one is for justice justice and one is for mercy so the two thrones are just the ancient days and the son of man the ancient of days is justice and the son of man is no let me clarify let me let me clarify yeah so the the point the point is when it talks about when it talks about the two thrones the two thrones being brought um that Rabbi Aka says uh okay one is for God and one's for the Messiah and someone else resp whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa you cannot say that one of these thrones is for the Messiah it they both have to be from they both have to be for God they both have to be for God so they're interpreting the thrones as both having to be for God and they sort of describe it as God's attributes are on these thrones the point that's why I don't know why anybody groaned at the question I was asking if it's if it's God's attributes which are on the throne and this is being discussed this is a later commentary the point is when you say this is a human being that the son that the the son of man the son of man is a human being rabbi Aka said "Hey that's the Messiah." And other people said "Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa you can't say that because this is clearly a throne for the divine but there's only one God and therefore both thrones are for God and we got to separate." Maybe I'm still just misharing this but after saying after saying that the explanation is that the two thrones one is for justice one is for mercy which you desri described as God's attributes oh sorry i shouldn't take all my So so if I have been brought back up to clarify my question i'm so sorry i've been brought back up to clarify my question so come back Alex what I'm asking is so which figure is justice and which one is mercy was not is not really uh it doesn't really it's not really relevant here i mean I'm just saying it's it's rather that this is showing that rabbis after the advent of Christianity were recognizing the son of man in Daniel 7 as an explicitly divine figure because when Rabbi Aka says "Oh it's the Messiah." He says "No no no both figures the two distinct figures are God." Oh sorry yeah okay so wait so after the advent of Christianity so when are you talking about you said after the advent of Christianity when he's saying that they've had this argument already and that within the Jewish Talmud they're arguing about this throne with two gods the point is there are rabbis who interpreted the son of man as God okay okay look I I for for fear of uh cuz you said it was implausible that's what he was responding to so earlier you said it was implausible i understand that part for for fear of further misunderstanding and further groans from the audience i fear I would want to read that passage on paper in front of me which maybe where where's he gone there you are can you speak to me after class let's give him a round of applause oh my gosh all right all right ladies and gentlemen that concludes Alex O' Conor versus David Wood the Jesus claim to be God you guys are getting a standing applause that was fun yeah it's done you guys can do better than that wow happy birthday dear happy birthday to you i did not tell them to do that that was completely unprovoked thank you
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