David Wood Vs. Alex O'Connor: Did Jesus Claim to Be God

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
All right, so how the debate is going to go, the title of the
debate is that Jesus claims to be God.
We're going to have opening statement, we're going to have
rebuttals, we're going to have counter rebuttals.
There'll be clocks for the speakers to see.
You guys won't see them. And then after all of that,
we're going to move the the table to the middle and we're

(00:21):
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, OK? He's real serious about it.
And so this is going to, we're going to go for I'd say at least
two hours tonight, OK? It's going to be a fun night.
And we're going to have both gentlemen give opening

(00:45):
statements, 20 minute openings, OK?
And it's going to be fun. So 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 roundof applause for David Wood.

(01:13):
Oh yeah, the podium is right here.
David Wood, ladies and gentlemen.

(01:33):
All right, and all the way from London, England, I've I've had a
blast getting to note his 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

(01:56):
round of applause for Alex O'Connor.
All right. Oh, yeah.
We're good. We're good.
Are you ready? Tell us when you're ready so we

(02:16):
can start the clock. I'm ready now.
Oh, you started. OK, well, good evening.
What a beautiful audience. You're all breathtaking.
This is how you. Charm a crowd in America, son.

(02:39):
I'd like to thank Ruslan for arranging this conference and
this debates. One of many awesome debates
taking place in 2025, hitting heroes against villains.
I want to say who the villain isin this debate.
I'll let all you lovely Christians judge that for
yourselves based entirely on ouraccents.

(03:05):
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, Roseline. I believe this.
Or you can all quit cheering for.

(03:26):
Alex, all right, no, I'd like tothank Alex for finally showing
up. He's a month and a half late,
but he finally showed up. I'm teasing, by the way.
People have no clue how dangerous debate con is actually
with the lineup they had and thenumber and the volume of death
threats against multiple speakers.
So plus he lives in what is rapidly becoming the Sharia

(03:47):
compliant hellhole 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
many of you have some verses going through your heads right

(04:09):
now. However, I am convinced that the
primary way Jesus claimed to be God and that his followers
claimed he's God gets overlookedby most Christians and non
Christians because we've lost touch with 1st century Jewish
culture and we just tend to not notice things.

(04:31):
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 theideas and practices of the Jesus
movement of the 1st century and the beginning of the 2nd century
and even later can be safely understood as part of the ideas

(04:52):
and practices that we understandto 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 cameon the scene to Incarnate in
himself, as it were, those theological notions, and take up
his messianic calling. So the ideas were there, paving

(05:14):
the way for Jesus who embody them.
Now, who's Daniel Boyerin to saythat?
Christian ideas like the Trinityand the Incarnation were already
present in some form in 1st century Judaism.
Is he a Christian apologist? No, he's he's a scholar of
rabbinic Judaism. He's a Talmud scholar.

(05:37):
He points out that a lot of the beliefs we now think of as
distinctively Christian actuallyweren't.
The earliest Christian Church was embedded in 1st 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

(05:57):
within Judaism as well, As Jewish orthodoxy was forming in
the 2nd century, the Rabbi's tended to weed out certain ideas
that had once been familiar in Judaism, but which had been
adopted by Christians. The Rabbi's wanted to clearly
distinguish Judaism from Christianity, and some of the
ideas that were present in 1st century Judaism were soon deemed

(06:19):
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 understood by listeners at the
time might not be understood by us here.

(06:41):
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 2powers in Heaven.

(07:01):
Ellen Siegel, the Jewish scholar, drew attention to this
in his 1977 book 2 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

(07:23):
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 first hand how bad the people

(07:44):
are. So he goes down to Sodom and
Gomorrah and what happens? Genesis 1924.
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. It sounds like there are two

(08:06):
Lords here. Watch what happens in Zechariah
too. 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

(08:26):
One has sent me, the Lord was sent by the Glorious 1 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

(08:50):
glad daughter Zion, for I am coming, and I will live among
you, declares the Lord Yahweh. Many nations, we'll 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

(09:13):
Almighty. So Yahweh rains down fire from
Yahweh. Yahweh is sent by Yahweh.
Plenty of passages like these. Then we've got a mysterious
figure called the Angel of the Lord.
Whenever you think, whatever youthink of, when you think about
angels, just get rid of that. The Angel of the Lord is no
ordinary Angel, because this Angel is somehow the Lord.

(09:36):
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.

(09:58):
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, heexclaimed, 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

(10:20):
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 father's 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

(10:45):
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

(11:05):
way to the prophets. We just don't pay attention to
it when we're reading. 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, 2 authorities in
heaven. If you put all of the passages

(11:27):
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 bearound.
They interact with each other, one sends the other, and yet

(11:47):
they're both God. This was all.
Very, very confusing to 1st century Jews.
If there's one God, why are there 2 powers in heaven?
Why are there 2 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

(12:12):
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 gone. It's a primary way.
It's primary issue that enrages his opponents.

(12:35):
But did Jesus really claim to beone 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

(12:56):
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 enemiesdo, again in reaction to him.
So what Jesus says, what Jesus does, what his friends say, what
his friends do, what his enemiessay, what his enemies do, I
would put all of that together and say that's our evidence that

(13:16):
we need to account for. And that will give us the best
indication of what Jesus was claiming about himself and 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 the reactions of some
of his enemies, and maybe I'll add a few more examples in the
rebuttals. What does Jesus say?
Jesus claims to be one of the two powers in heaven in multiple

(13:39):
ways. I'll give you 3.
The most familiar. 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 1127. All things have been handed over

(14:02):
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 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

(14:24):
him, and no one knows the Fatherexcept 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. 2 powers Father and Son.
Jesus is the Son. Mark 12 While Jesus was teaching

(14:48):
in the temple courts, he asked, why do 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 righthand 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

(15:10):
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 2 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

(15:32):
powers instead of three, where'sthe Holy Spirit?
He's there. But but we're focusing on how
Jesus claimed to be God and that's connected to the 2 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

(15:55):
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.

(16:17):
Why do they react like that? The Son of Man, that's Jesus
favorite title for himself, willbe seated at the right hand of
power. So there's the power, which
sounds like God, and there's theSon of Man coming with the
clouds of heaven. How many powers in heaven?
I see 2 here and Jesus claims tobe one of them.
So who's Glee? Who is Jesus?

(16:38):
Claiming to be at his Jewish trial, he's claiming to be the
Son of Man prophesied in Daniel 713 to 14.
Daniel says to 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.

(16:59):
All nations and peoples of everylanguage worshipped 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 worshipped by all nations, whose dominion is
everlasting, and who comes with the clouds.

(17:22):
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.

(17:44):
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. 2 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.

(18:07):
But what does Jesus do? Jesus judges the world.
In the Old Testament, David saysthe 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

(18:31):
the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.
All the nations will be gatheredbefore 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,

(18:54):
but has given all judgement to the Son, that all may honour the
Son, just as they honour the Father.
Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who
sent him. If you don't honour God, you can
be around. You don't honour God, you can't
be around. Jesus also raises the dead at
the resurrection. According to the Old Testament,

(19:17):
Yahweh is the one who raises thedead.
For Samuel 26, the Lord kills and makes alive.
He brings down to Sheol 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 here will live.

(19:38):
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's 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.

(20:01):
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

(20:22):
another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being in
very nature God, do not considerequality 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.

(20:43):
Therefore God exalted him to thehighest place and gave him the
name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus
everybody 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

(21:05):
name of Jesus, every knee shouldbow and every tongue acknowledge
that Jesus Christ is Lord. There's 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 Christian said that's Jesus.

(21:28):
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?2 And Jesus is one of them.
Paul quotes that and obviously agrees with it.
But look at how Paul describes the 2 powers for us.
There is one God the Father, from whom are all things and for

(21:49):
whom we exist. And 1 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.
There's only one gun. Well keep reading and 1 Lord
Jesus Christ. Does that mean that Jesus is
Lord but the Father isn't? All Paul does here is take two

(22:10):
titles for God and says I'll call the Father God and Jesus
Lord. 2 powers and Jesus is one of them.
What about John 1? In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word's with God, and theWord 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

(22:31):
Word, but the Word was God. How many powers?
2 and Jesus is one of them. You really want a fun verse
later in the same chapter, try John 118.
No one has ever seen God. The only God who was at the
Father's side. He has made Him known.
Sounds like 2 powers. It's what the early Christians
say, among other things. What do they do wrapping up?

(22:53):
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 honour and praise him.
In other words, they give Jesus the full array of religious
honours. What could convince a bunch of
1st century Jews that a Carpenter from Nazareth was one
of the two powers in heaven? Probably the same thing that

(23:17):
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 see which option Alex goeswith.

(23:38):
All right, that is David Woods opening statement and Alex is
going to take the podium for his20 minute opening statement.
David went over one minute and 14 seconds, so we will give Alex
a grace period of one minute and14 seconds.

(24:02):
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. Thank you.
Or, as we say in England, Assalamu Alaikum.

(24:24):
I, I I must apologise 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

(24:46):
was going to take. I woke up this morning in this
fine resort 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

(25:07):
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

(25:28):
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 judgement among the
gods, Elohim. That is definitely the word for
gods. This seems to be an indication

(25:49):
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

(26:10):
as we turn to what I think is the most important
Christological gospel of the four, which is of course John's
gospel. Many people think that I just
dismissed 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 historicallyreliable for the purposes of
this debate and see what Jesus actually says about himself.

(26:31):
The question we're interested inin here is the relationship that
Jesus has to his father. David has been speaking about
the 2 powers in heaven heresy and saying that Jesus
relationship to the father is the kind of relationship that
people who believed in these these two powers was talking
about. Well, let's investigate that in
Jesus own words. There's one place in the gospels

(26:52):
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 Christological.
Claim Who can claim to be identical to the Father except

(27:14):
for someone who is God? And there was no confusion about
this. The Jewish opponents picked up
stones to sewn 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

(27:37):
realise, the Psalm that I just quoted and explained briefly a
moment ago. So, directly asked about his
Christological 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?

(28:01):
Jesus continues. If he called them gods, why
wouldn't he call me God, the onewho 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 council you shall be called God, that is
sons of the Most High. So it's a misunderstanding.

(28:21):
Jesus immediately afterwards clarifies further and says,
believe the works, that is, the works of my Father through me,
that you may know and understandthat the Father is in me and I
am in the Father. Another pretty intense
Christological claim. What does it mean?
Let's turn to the most importantChristological chapter in John's
Gospel, which is of course chapter 17.

(28:43):
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 2 powers in heaven. What does Jesus say in his own

(29:03):
words? John chapter 17 verses 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 1 hen HEN, the same
Greek word used in John 10. Father, just as you were in me
and I am in you, may they also be in us.

(29:26):
This is crucial. This is pivotal when Jesus is
asked to clarify his Christological 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 thesame way, just as kathos 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

(29:50):
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

(30:11):
Philip asks Jesus to show him the Father.
What does Jesus say? Anyone who has seen me has seen
the Father. Another intense Christological
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

(30:31):
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, thistime 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'sjust told I, that if you've seen

(30:52):
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 thatday, verse 20, on that day you
will realise 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 Christology
to the Father, and he says that I'm in the Father and the

(31:13):
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 whereto take this because of course
there is a third really important Christological 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.

(31:36):
Because famously in chapter 8, Jesus was 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 meansnothing.
Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day,

(31:57):
and he was glad. And they say what?
You're not even 50 years old andAbraham 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 Amy, which many people think is a

(32:20):
call back to the divine name of God-given to Moses in Exodus
chapter 314. In Exodus chapter 3, Moses asks
God, who shall I tell them has sent me?
And God says Ayesha, Asha, Ayesha, 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,

(32:43):
the New Testament is not writtenin 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 Septuagint.
This is something that was pointed out by Jr.
Daniel Kirk. So I'm indebted to him for this,
but if you read the Septuagint that the New Testament writers
were using, and we have very good evidence to suggest that
John as well is using the Septuagint, how is this verse

(33:05):
rendered? Exodus chapter 3, God says to
Moses eggo Amy, hot on, which means something like I am the
one who is. So go and tell them hot on has
sent you. In other words, in the Greek
version, Eggo Amy is just as it is typically used in Greek, a
way of saying I am. And it's used commonly like

(33:26):
this. In John Chapter 9, 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 Eggo 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, Eggo Amy.
Once again, that is how it is often used.

(33:49):
So in the Greek Septuagint, we have I am hot on.
I am the one who is. Go and tell them that hot on has
sent you. And the Greek Septuagint, In
other words, the abbreviation ofthe divine name is not Ego Amy,
it's hot on 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

(34:10):
seems to annoy anybody. Why is that?
Or 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 an invocation of the divine name, I'm just
willing to grant it. Let's say, OK, 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

(34:30):
cultural context of early Judaism, and there is a
tradition in early Jewish. Texts, or at least.
Texts of around the contemporarytime 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

(34:53):
on earth. Dave has already talked about
the Angel of Yahweh and there isthe 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

(35:16):
His Son in these last days. Ephesus is the Angel of the Lord
way back in Exodus, the story ofthe Exodus.
Why is it that Hebrew says he's only spoken to us through the
sun in the last few days? Likewise, in Acts chapter 6,
Stephen is recounting a history of the Jews, and in it he says
that an Angel spoke to Moses through the burning Bush.

(35:38):
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 has termed the. Lord, because God.
Dwells in him. What does that mean?

(35:58):
I think it's an indication 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 3rd Enoch, Metatron is called
the little Yahweh, invoking the divine name.
And in fact, to the extent that the Talmud warns Jews not to

(36:20):
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 ofAbraham, 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

(36:42):
the voice of God speaking to an Angel, and he speaks to an Angel
saying, go Yahooel. 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 Yahooel.
Yahooel, by the way, Yah and El.It is a substitute for the

(37:05):
ineffable name of Yahweh, the writing of which is forbidden.
And that's why he's called YahooWell.
And in fact, at one point God ishimself addressed as Yahoo Well,
in this text Abraham is told by this Angel Yahoo.
Well, stand up, Abraham, go without fear, be right, glad and
rejoice, for I am with you, For eternal honour has been prepared

(37:26):
for you by the eternal one I have appointed to be with you,
and the generation prepared for you.
So the Angel invoking the divinename, 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 Yahuwel, when Abraham finally stands up,
one of the descriptions of Yahuwel's appearance is that his

(37:46):
hair is white like snow. Where have we heard that before?
But interesting, isn't it? Let's think about the context of
John 858. 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

(38:07):
tradition? This is what Andrew Perryman has
suggested recently, that when hesays, I mean, this whole thing
gets kicked off because Jesus says Abraham rejoiced to see my
day. Well, hold on a second.
In the apocalypse of Abraham, the Angel Yahuwal 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

(38:32):
tradition has Jesus referring tothe fact that Abraham rejoiced
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-existing.He uses the present tense.
I am. It's worth bearing in mind that

(38:53):
the Bible sometimes does this when it is talking about plans
that are preordained from the beginning of time.
For example, in Revelation chapter 13, we hear about the
Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world, 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 atleast as if it happened there
and then. Why?

(39:13):
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

(39:35):
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 a plan this from
the beginning of time. So putting all of this together,
there is an interesting interpretation of Jesus saying
that Abraham rejoices in my day and the Jews not understanding

(39:55):
him not getting it. He says, look before Abraham was
I am, I am the fulfilment that was promised to Abraham and was
from the beginning of time and here I am.
Now of course this is all exegesis and it's a little 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

(40:15):
stones to to stone him to death?Because of course, if I'm
looking for a sound exegesis 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 howcomprehensively the Jews
misunderstand what Jesus is saying.
When he says I am the father of one, they say, ah, you're

(40:36):
claiming to be God. And he says, no, no, you're not
getting me. When he says that he forgives
sins and they say, ah, you know who can forgive sins with 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 whatblasphemy they think he's
committed. Do we now just think that they
got it right, that they correctly understood what he was

(40:57):
saying? I'm not so sure, especially
considering that if you look in Acts again, I've already
mentioned Act 6, this is Stephen.
Stephen is telling the story of the Jews to the Jewish
authorities who has been broughtbefore on charges of blasphemy.
He's eventually stoned to death.Why?
Because he has a vision in Acts 7 filled with the Holy Spirit,

(41:20):
he gazed into heaven and saw theglory of God and Jesus standing
at the right hand of God. That is God, not the Father.
Look, he said, I see the heavensopened 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

(41:40):
Man sat at the right hand of Godor stood at the right hand of
God in this case, and the claim that Jesus makes in his trial.
It's quite interesting. Stephen is stoned to death for
this. Did Stephen claim that Jesus was
God here? Did Stephen claim that he was
God here? Sometimes Christians act as if
the only way to commit blasphemyis to claim to be God.
That is simply not the case. In fact, in Acts chapter 6,

(42:02):
we're told that Stephen has beenfraudulently 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.
If we'd heard, we've heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth will
destroy this place and change the customs Moses has handed
onto US. Ladies and gentlemen, if

(42:25):
changing the customs that Moses has handed onto 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.

(42:46):
But this idea of the divine namebeing invested into people and
him having and them having the authority of God without being
Yahweh themselves is I think theimportant ticket here. 1
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

(43:07):
attempts to conquer it, the crisis is averted.
When a priest whose mitre 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 downto the divine name that was in

(43:27):
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.

(43:49):
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 forme is in John 1244 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's sent me.

(44:12):
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 forsure.
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.

(44:32):
Thank you for 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 12 minute
rebuttal round. All right, Thank you, Alex.
In my opening statement, I show that in the 1st century there

(44:53):
was an interesting discussion within Judaism about the 2
powers in heaven. They had various.
Ways of dealing with this? And we can see why when we read
passages like Genesis 22, the story of Abraham and Isaac.
But the Lord, but the Angel of the Lord called out to him from

(45:13):
heaven, Abraham, Abraham, here Iam, he replied, wait, no.
Then God said, take your son, your only son whom you love,
Isaac, and go to the region of Moriah.
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 yourson, verse 11.

(45:35):
But the Angel of the Lord calledout to him from heaven, Abraham,
Abraham. Is when he.
Starts to do it. Here I am, he replied.
Do not lay a hand on the boy, hesaid.
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

(45:57):
only son. And it was God who answered, who
ordered Abraham to do this. So we have we have situations
like this and I argue that Jesusenters the discussion when
they're confused about the 2 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, what his enemies sayand what his enemies do.

(46:21):
Alex seems to suggest that therecould be some sort of Angel or
something like this, or even a person who's in, who's endowed
with this kind of divine authority.
I got problems with this even even here in Genesis.
So look at what this said. Then the Lords, Genesis 33.
Then the Lord said to Moses, leave this place, you and the

(46:42):
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, parasites,
hibisites, hebisites, 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.

(47:04):
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 thingsyou have and people tried to
figure out how to deal with thisand they came up again with all
sorts of ways. And Jesus entered the picture

(47:27):
and claimed to be one of the twopowers 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 of
heaven. And we saw how people reacted to
him claiming to be the Son of man coming with the clouds of

(47:49):
heaven. In response, Alex was quoting, I
quoted Psalm 82 and then Jesus using this using this passage.
So let's go ahead and take a look at this.
So they accused Jesus of claiming to be God and Jesus
answered them. Is it not written in your law?
I have said you were gods if he called them gods to whom the

(48:11):
word of God came. And scripture cannot be set
aside. What about the one whom the
Father set apart as his very ownand 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? This is not.
And I have no idea how you wouldever read the Gospel of John
like this, let alone anything else Jesus said.

(48:33):
This is not Jesus saying what you're misunderstanding.
I'm just a regular dude. Again, if you, if this were the
only verse in there, maybe you could say 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

(48:54):
you're claiming. You're claiming to be the son of
God. This means you're claiming to be
equal to God and so on. And therefore this is blasphemy.
And Jesus response is well, 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.

(49:15):
You have to show that it's somehow that the title is not
from God, that it's not true, that it's false.
Have you done that? No, OK, you can't kill me.
You can't just say there's a claim and therefore we will kill
you over it. So it's a legal technicality.
Again, if you're if you're somehow reading this and see,
Jesus is just claiming to be a regular guy.
Well. All right, so we have John 17

(49:38):
five. 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 just just claimingsome some regular relationship
that we can all have with God orsomething 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

(49:58):
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. I think he said he's going to

(50:19):
respond to it. So what does Jesus do?
He's the judge. He's the final judge of all
people, According to him. Again, the Old Testament says
that Yahweh is the one who's going to sit on his throne in
judgement. Jesus said, yeah, that's me.
The Old Testament says that thatYahweh is the one who raises the
dead. Jesus says that he's the one who

(50:40):
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 allare.
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 you know, 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.

(51:02):
Now this is interesting. Alex quotes Stephen in Acts 7.
Now this is a this is an awesomepassage because this this kind
of proves everything I was saying in my opening statement.
Look at this. So Stephen rebukes the Jewish
leaders in the harshest terms. You can possibly rebuke someone.

(51:22):
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 1 and now you have betrayed and murdered him.
You whoever see the law that wasgiven through angels but have
not obeyed it. That is absolutely brutal.

(51:45):
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 gnashed their teeth at him.
But Stephen, 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 openand the Son of man, remember

(52:09):
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? Watch when they get upset.
I see, I see heaven open, and the Son of Man standing at the
right hand of God. 2 powers in heaven, and Jesus is one of

(52:32):
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 youngman 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.

(52:56):
Jesus is one of the two powers in heaven.
So keep in mind, this actually supports me, right?
I mean, this is 1 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
just a just a regular guy hanging out in heaven, first of
all, you might want to check about someone being in the

(53:17):
presence of God and what sort ofperson you'd have to be.
But look, look what look what look what he I mean, oops, do I
have it? Oh, I don't have it right,
right. Right after this is when when
Stephen I don't have it on the slide.
Right after this is when Stephenlooks up and says what Lord
Jesus received my spirit that just a regular guy in the

(53:39):
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
does not look like that. Jesus seems to be the authority
here. And this not only gets Stephen
killed, this sets Paul on a rampage.

(54:01):
Paul says I have to wipe this stuff out.
Why? We're told in the book of Acts
what really sets Paul off when Ananias is told that Paul is
coming. Well, Saul, back then, he says
that he's been told to apprehendeveryone who calls on this name.

(54:22):
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 two years after the crucifixion.

(54:43):
When is this taking place? This is not something that
happens 50 or 60 years after thetime of Jesus.
We have Christians calling on the name of Jesus as they call
on the name of Yahweh and we cantrace it to within two years of
Jesus crucifixion. So if this is a
misunderstanding, that's a pretty big misunderstanding and

(55:04):
Jesus must be the worst communicator of all time.
Now Alex brings up the the Septuagint responding to John.
I didn't, I didn't rely on the passages he's responding to.
But if you want to go to the Septuagint and in terms of
interpreting, interpreting the claims of the New Testament,
let's go to Luke, Luke 646. Why do you, Jesus says, why do

(55:26):
you call me Lord? Lord and do not do what I say.
If you want to talk about the Septuagint, 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 Septuagint, and it's a translation of Adonai, Yahweh,

(55:50):
God Adonai Yahweh. So that's the.
Lord Yahweh, but in Greek they would translate Adonai and.
Yahweh as curious. So it's curious, curious in the
in the Septuagint and here Jesussays, 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 onthe Septuagint claiming to be

(56:11):
Yahweh. Here you go.
There it is, and it's in the Gospel of Luke.
So at the end of the day, the claim is that everything is just
some sort of big misunderstanding.
This is very, very, very strangeto me because you're basically
saying Jesus was not a good communicator.
You know, you think about the Beatitudes and this, the Sermon

(56:33):
on the Mount and parable, the prodigal son and the parable,
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

(56:55):
point. If all of his followers just
seem to misunderstand him and start worshipping 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 here.

(57:24):
All right, all right, so now Alex is going to go up to do his
12 minute rebuttal. It gets a bit messy, I'm afraid,
ladies and gentlemen, because ofcourse 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 makeit interesting.

(57:45):
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 the sort of final authority on
exegesis here. I'm simply asking you to
consider what you think is a more appropriate explanation.
I suggested the divine name bearing model as opposed to the

(58:05):
2 powers in Heaven and when I look at passages such as Exodus.
23 verses 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 asked which
interpretation lends itself morenicely to the passages.

(58:27):
David's rebuttal there seems 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?

(58:49):
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.
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

(59:10):
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 rathermade himself nothing.
As I'm sure you all know, that word grasps there.
Harpagmon or something like that.
I'm not very good at pronouncingthe Greek, but it means

(59:31):
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 seize, 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

(59:56):
cross and humbled himself even to death, therefore he was given
the name that was above all other names.
Therefore, so. 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.

(01:00:16):
Again, which interpretation lends itself more nicely to
these passages? Ford, It's worth my favorite
interpretation. I was discussing this the other
night at dinner with well, not with David actually, that would
be giving too much away. But is this so-called Adamic?
James Dunn has written about this the sort of Adam
Christology as applies to Philippians 2 who being in the

(01:00:37):
very nature of God. This, this word meaning like the
form of God, if we consider thatJesus is supposed to be the
answer to Adam's sin, Adam's sin, and Jesus redeems.
Adam is made in the image of Godand considers equality with God
as something to be grasped, to be seized when he takes the
fruit and eats it. And that is how man falls.
So how is man redeemed? Well, Jesus Christ, though also

(01:01:00):
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 has 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

(01:01:22):
Yahweh. But he's also not just some
dude. David mentioned the glory that's
given to Jesus in John chapter 17, verse 5, the same chapter
that I was using. Yeah, verse 5, Father, glorify
me in the presence that I had with you before the world was
created. Just keep reading John chapter

(01:01:42):
17 and see what Jesus wants to do with that glory.
In fact, the very passage that Iquoted, my prayer is not for
them alone. I pray that all may be one.
Father, just as you're in me andI'm 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.

(01:02:03):
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

(01:02:25):
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 glorythat he has been given by the
Father to the disciples to. Again, all I'm asking you to
consider is however you interpret these verses, where

(01:02:46):
Jesus is given glory, Jesus is given the judgement.
And bear bear in mind that Jesusis 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

(01:03:07):
will judge. Jesus also promises judgement
over the 12 prize of Israel to the disciples.
So are the disciples God? Jesus forgive sins and only God
can forgive sins. In John chapter 20 verse 21, he
says as the Father has sent me again, kathos kathos, as just as

(01:03:27):
the Father has sent me, I'm sending you, if you forgive
people 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

(01:03:50):
shared with everybody. Also this Luke chapter 6 verse
46 thing that David put up. I want to make sure I'm
understanding this correctly. As far as I understand in Luke
chapter 6, verse 46, when it, when it quotes Lord, Lord, you
know, 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

(01:04:15):
he'll address it in his second rebuttal.
And then said, ah, but you know,in the Greek Septuagint, this is
translated as curious, curious because it's Lord twice.
Which translation of the Old Testament are the New Testament
writers using the Septuagint? So the passage that they read
will have said curious, curious Lord twice.
It wouldn't have said Yahweh andthen Adonite, or rather the
other way around. I think it is.

(01:04:35):
It would have said curious, curious.
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, Gee, am I supposed tounderstand Jesus as just being a
terrible communicator? Well, if you look at the way

(01:04:55):
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, ever

(01:05:18):
looking, 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 that when he was alone with his disciples, he
explained everything. So no, I don't actually think
that Jesus public ministry was entirely clear to everybody who
was listening. In fact, that's part of the
point. We're told that Jesus is

(01:05:38):
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 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.

(01:06:01):
And yet, throughout the synopticGospels, there is a motif, the
messianic. Secrets, 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. I think the best way of

(01:06:21):
understanding who Jesus is is, like I say, a sort of idyllic
human being. Take when Jesus walks on the
water, for example, another example.
That's often given as a high Christological 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.

(01:06:41):
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

(01:07:06):
God Forgives sins, but then the disciples are given the
authority to forgive sins. In John chapter 20, we're told
only God walks on the water, andthen Peter does this immediately
afterwards. We're told that only God can
have the authority to judge, as David says, but the disciples
have promised judgement over the12 tribes of Israel.
That's not the only time the judgement is delegated, by the

(01:07:27):
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 thatGod 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.

(01:07:49):
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 proscenaio, which means to bow down or prostate
before a higher authority. And of course, Jesus received
this. Proscenaeo worship, Therefore he
must be God. If that is the case, then we

(01:08:15):
have to consider the fact that David in the Septuagint for
example, bows down Proscenaeo before Esau, That Joseph's
brothers Proscenaeo before him when he's governor of Egypt.
That the entire nation of Israeloffers Proscenaeo worship to
King David as well. That lot Proscenao before 2

(01:08:36):
angels. Proscenao is littered throughout
the Old and also the New Testament.
By the way, in the parable of the unmerciful servant and one
of the servants returns, he offers proscenao 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 proscenao worship

(01:08:59):
before them. Jesus himself in Revelation is
saying that human beings will receive proscenao worship.
If proscenao 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.

(01:09:19):
There is another word that sometimes translated as worship,
which is la truo. This is religious cultic worship
that is only offered to God. Nowhere in the gospels is this
offered to Jesus. How many times is Prosecania
worship? How many times is any kind of
worship accepted by Jesus in Luke's gospel?
Does anybody know 0 The word comes up three times, twice in

(01:09:40):
the temptation of the desert where it's discussed, and once
at the end after Jesus is 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's two, but
one of those is the Demon Legionthat's usually translated as
throws himself. At his feet before Jesus.

(01:10:01):
And the other is when the Roman soldiers mockingly worship
Jesus, they offer proscania. Why?
Because he's the king of the Jews?
Because proscenae. Worship is something offered to
kings, higher authorities. I'll keep going, perhaps in my
further rebuttal, but if worshipis something that is only due to
God, then there are a lot more sinners in the Bible than we
think. OK, thanks.

(01:10:27):
All right, so now David Wood is going to do his 2nd 6 minute
rebuttal and then that'll be followed up by Alex's 6 minute
rebuttal. All right, Alex says.
We're looking for best explanation.
I would submit that the best explanation for Jesus claiming
to be one of the two powers in heaven and for claiming to do

(01:10:51):
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 thetwo powers in heaven and for his
enemies to repeatedly accuse himof blasphemy, ultimately sent

(01:11:13):
him to death. And then people who say the same
thing, like Stephen, also find themselves being executed.
I would say that the best explanation of that is Jesus was
claiming to be God. That's just me.
It's like if, if, if I met, if Imet like 5 suppose I never heard
a word from Alex, but I meet like five of his biggest fans

(01:11:34):
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 with

(01:11:54):
Jesus, if I just know, if I justknew these guys were were people
were being put to death for making these kinds of claims and
that his followers are going around worshipping him and
praying to him, I would think he's saying something.
Now Alex thinks that apparently thinks that the best explanation
is this divine name bearing scenario.
If so, Jesus did a really terrible job of getting that

(01:12:14):
message across. And 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 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 saysthat I'm not going along with
you anymore, which is Yahweh saying that he was the Angel of

(01:12:36):
the Lord who was guiding them. 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

(01:12:57):
not God. He says that proseceneo can mean
bow down. Yes, you the word proseceneo
depends on the 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 a normal human. But guess what, we have clearly

(01:13:17):
clearly religious context in some of these passages, for
instance, Matthew 1433, they arefreaked out those who are in the
boat worshipped him saying trulyyou are the son of God.
It's a different sort of contextand I want to ask you for a
favor and I want to bow down outof respect.
As for Philippians 2, it soundedlike he was saying Dunn's Dunn's

(01:13:37):
theory that this is just saying that when it says who is 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 human being, a human being.
And since he found himself as a human being, like we're all the
image of God, he humbled himselfand therefore he was eventually
exalted and so on. This just it just doesn't work.

(01:14:00):
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 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

(01:14:20):
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 ledto 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.

(01:14:40):
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 him the

(01:15:00):
highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven, on
earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledged that
Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Alec. Seems to think that if you're 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's no one, there's no one else but me.

(01:15:23):
That's what's being quoted therefrom Isaiah.
As for curious, curious, Alex says, well, well, what would
they be using? They would be using the
Septuagint, the Greek translation, Yeah.
And they went to a passage, they.
They, they, they. Used the formulation curious
Curious which is specifically referring to Yahweh.

(01:15:43):
That's what Jesus uses. He's quoting curious Curious.
He's calling himself curious curious.
The only other use of that is the Septuagint where it refers
to Adonai Yahweh. So why is Jesus using it?
And again, I only brought up that point because he he brought
up the point about the Septuagint and using it to
interpret the claims of Christ. So I said, fine, let's go with
it. We got in Luke and therefore

(01:16:04):
that's him claiming to be Yahweh.
Was Jesus a bad communicator? He says, ah, but Jesus wasn't
clear. And he veiled a statement and
said, Oh, yes, I grant all of that.
Jesus was a careful communicator.
He was careful about how he communicated certain things.
He he tried to unveil certain things over time when people
were ready for it. That's not, that's not what I

(01:16:25):
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 the records ofthe 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, I wouldsay that's a really, really,

(01:16:49):
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.

(01:17:12):
All right, all right, check, check, check, check, check.
OK, so now Alex is going to do his 2nd 6 minute rebuttal.
OK. I suppose I really want to nail
down on this worship point sinceI was kind of getting at that at
the end. And David says, yeah, proscaneo
can mean just simply bang down, but in a religious context, it
means something else. Like, what do you mean?

(01:17:34):
How do you know that without begging the question?
Like I say, let's actually evaluate.
That's what I'm sort of going through.
How many times proscaneo worshipis given to Jesus?
In the New Testament, well, at least that Jesus accepts it.
In the New Testament, it doesn'thappen once In Luke's Gospel, it
basically doesn't happen once inMark because it happens twice.
And one of these is a demon. And one of these, which I

(01:17:55):
suppose is an interesting thing to explore in itself, but one of
these is them simply mocking Jesus.
Because he's the king. Why would they consider mocking
him with proscaneo worship if hewas claiming to be king of the
Jews? Because that's what proscaneo
means. If proscenao can mean actually
worship of the kind that the trio usually gets at, that is
worship, cultic worship of a religious figure, as David

(01:18:15):
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 proscenao 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

(01:18:38):
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

(01:19:00):
in verse 38. He says to Jesus Lord I believe,
and he worshipped him. Except she doesn't say so in
Papyrus 75. He doesn't say so in Codex
Inatticus. He doesn't say so in Codex,
watching Tony Annis in other. Words this verse.
Isn't present in our earliest manuscripts.

(01:19:21):
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 our earliest
manuscripts, and the story of the adulterous woman.
That he who's? 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

(01:19:42):
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 worshipping 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

(01:20:03):
uses a term when there's anotherone available to indicate cultic
religious worship to someone who's divine?
Yet he chooses a word which justmeans 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

(01:20:24):
began to get the picture that hewas God?
They knew that he was the Messiah for a long time, but I
genuinely don't know when David thinks they began to realise
that this person was God. Do you think there might be an
instance of them offering proscenao worship to Jesus
before they'd fully realised that?
I think so because proscenao worship is a physical action
that's given to people who are of a higher authority.

(01:20:45):
Just to belabor this point in the Septuagint, here are some
examples of Proskina worship. Lot worships 2 angels in
Genesis. Abraham worships the Hittites.
Isaac blesses Jacobs to have allthe nations on earth worship him
in Genesis. Jacob worships Esau, Joseph's
brothers worship him. Abigail worships David's

(01:21:07):
servants in First Samuel. Saul worships the dead Samuel in
First Samuel. The sons of prophets worship
Eliza and 2nd kings. David worships the temple in
Psalm 5. All the people of Israel worship
King David in First Chronicles. This is the same term
proscenaeum. If David wants to suggest that.
Sometimes this proscenaeum worship can mean cultic

(01:21:29):
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 isessentially bunk.

(01:21:50):
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, though you're only supposed to worship God,
and people say that this is an indication that any worship of

(01:22:12):
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 actuallychanged in the Old Testament.
The passage that he's quoting says fear God rather than

(01:22:35):
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 proscenao,
which we know that Jesus can't be saying only proscenao towards
God because all of these people,including people that Jesus
talks about himself are offered proscenao worship.

(01:22:58):
Indeed, proscenao is worshipped,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 La Truo cultic
religious worship? So this is a reaffirmation of

(01:23:18):
the point that proscenao worshipis fine, but la Truo worship is
something special that can only be given to God.
The key text here is James Dunn's Did the Early Christians
Worship God? And as he rightly points out,
there is no talk anywhere once in the entire New Testament of
LA Trio worship being offered toJesus.

(01:23:42):
Why not all? Right.
OK, 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?Well, I have some questions

(01:24:05):
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? The the Old Testament says that

(01:24:27):
God is the God of all flesh. If 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 if

(01:24:49):
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.

(01:25:12):
What's he going to be an atheistif he is going to as, 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 as far as what Jesus is going to do, you would
continue the eternal relationship that you've had
with the Father, and you would do that through prayer.

(01:25:33):
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. I suppose because.
All authority has been given to him.
It's been given to him by God, right?
Which the way that I read that is that the Father has delegated
the authority that is rightfullyhis to Jesus.

(01:25:54):
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 Elijah.
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 John Chapter 11, he looks upward and

(01:26:16):
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

(01:26:37):
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 dothis.
And so even in instances where Jesus appears to perform
miracles of his own accord, suchas 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.

(01:26:59):
In communication with God beforehand.
But right now, he's saying so. Publicly so the people will know
that he sent him. Why does Jesus need to pray
before he raises Lazarus from the dead?
I mean, this is the exact same chapter where Jesus declares
himself the resurrection and thelife.
That's right. And it's in the same book where
Jesus says that he's the one whoraises the dead at the

(01:27:21):
resurrection. Everyone who's in their graves
will hear the voice of the Son of God.
And so 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.

(01:27:44):
John chapter 5 is basically one response to this.
Jesus. Jesus heals on the Sabbath.
And this freaks them out becausethey 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

(01:28:04):
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 for

(01:28:28):
the father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the
Son, that all may honour the sonjust as they honour the father.
The only way you'd honour the Son the same way you you honour
the Father is if they have the same nature and attributes.
You wouldn't honour anyone else like you honour God.
Interesting, do you believe? So Jesus is saying that the
reason he's the one who judges everything is because is so that

(01:28:49):
we honour him the same way we honour the Father.
That doesn't that that. Sounds 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
to say. Yep.
Only because I've I've heard youmake this point.
Before that he says that. It's it's that word as is quite
important what you just said, sothat he will honour, so that

(01:29:09):
they will honour me just as theyhonour the Father.
That word, just as is kathos which I mentioned earlier,
that's also used when Jesus saysso.
They will know that you have loved me just as you have loved
them so. If we're, if we're going to be
consistent in our usage of the term here, if, if Jesus saying
like that, they will honour you just as they'll honour me just

(01:29:31):
as just as you honour the Father.
Then the loving relationship hasto be treated in the same way,
right? Well, I think you can say I'm
trying to think if you say that,you know, I can say I love this
person just as I love my wife. And yeah, you'd be right.
I can say, well, I just mean I love both of them, but not in
the, you know, I that wouldn't necessarily be saying I love

(01:29:52):
that person exactly as I but. That's why there are two words
in the Greek. That's why there's like the word
for. No, I'm fine there.
I'm talking about you. 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's
working, he's working also. And it's interesting because the

(01:30:12):
discussion among the rabbis was,does God work on the Sabbath?
Yeah. 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, by myself, I can do nothing.

(01:30:32):
He points us, he he points us out.
And in this context, he's the final judge.
And so it's you will honour the Son just as you honour the
father there in context, it would be very strange to say,
well, I just mean honour me in some sense, like you honour the
father, but not not in that way.It's, I mean the Old Testament
Yahweh's. The one who sets up his throne

(01:30:54):
to judge Jesus is the one who says all judgement is given to
Him. Given, yeah.
Yeah. And so if it's if all judgement
is given to him, and keep in mind the Old Testament says
Yahweh is the one who's going tojudge.
And you're saying, yeah, but it's given to Jesus.
Yeah. And he says it's so that we
honour him the same way we honour the Father.

(01:31:16):
Yeah, OK, 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 isworking on the Sabbath.
He says my Father is working, soam 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

(01:31:38):
the Sabbath 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 without which is not lawful on
the Sabbath? What does Jesus say in response?
Have you not heard what David did?

(01:31:58):
Have you not read what David did?
When he is 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 andnot mankind for the Sabbath.

(01:32:21):
A very famous quote, The Sabbathwas made for man and not man for
the Sabbath. Bearing in mind that although.
The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.
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, well it's complicated by the
fact that son of man without thedefinite article is just a way
of saying human being. So there are some scholars such

(01:32:42):
as Maurice Casey who believed that the Son of man sayings have
been corrupted, at least some ofthem from originally saying a
son of man or the son of man in the sense of just meaning a
human being. And 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

(01:33:05):
breaks the Sabbath. He then says that the Sabbath
was made for man humans, not humans or man for the Sabbaths.
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.

(01:33:26):
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 onlyborn 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.

(01:33:50):
If it's only God who can work onthe Sabbath, then why does Jesus
fill to David? 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 inIsrael 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 viewed Jesus as like

(01:34:11):
a a religious reformer sent against religious extremism and
so on. There Jesus talking about like
preserving life and so on. The accusation in John in John 5
is different. But I'm, I mean, I'm, I'm
pointing to John because you are, you're going with John in
John five. He says the father's working and

(01:34:34):
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 claimingto be some, you know, just
another human being or somethinglike that.
Well, I don't think Jesus is claiming to be just another
human being, but although we aretalking about two different
passages here, if the reason that Jesus gives.
But bear in mind there are multiple ways to interpret this.

(01:34:55):
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.
If it's well recognised that Godis the Lord of the Sabbath and
Jesus is claiming himself as a title, the Son of man to be the
Lord of the Sabbath, or in this instance just claiming the

(01:35:17):
authority because God is workingso, 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, whynot 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 was
why does he refer to David in justifying we're?

(01:35:38):
Talking about, we're talking about John, yes you can, you
can, you can, 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 defence.
Jesus said to them, my Father isalways at his work to this very
day and I too am working for this reason.
They tried all the more to kill him.

(01:35:59):
Not only. Because he was.
Breaking the Sabbath, but was even calling God his own Father,
making himself to God with God. 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 OK to breakthe 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

(01:36:22):
claims. 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.
The Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to
the Son, that all may honour theSon just as they honour the
Father. Whoever does not honour the Son

(01:36:42):
does not honour the Father. That's when he goes on to say
that he's the one who raises thedead.
Time is coming and has now come,when the dead will hear the
voice of the Son of God and those who here will live.
For as the Father has life in himself, so he's granted the Son
also to have life in himself, and he's given him authority to
judge because he is the son of man.
And then he goes on to say that the dead are going to be raised.

(01:37:03):
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. I'm noticing the words granted
and given or authority there. 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

(01:37:26):
all judgement 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

(01:37:48):
and believes him who has sent mehas 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. You're the voice of the Son of
God. Yeah, now.
He's the Son of God, right, Jesus?
That's right. You agree that he's claiming to
be the Son. Of God, so they'll hear his
voice and they'll be raised fromthe dead.
But how do we like? Who is doing the raising here
and how do you know? Wait, you're, you're saying

(01:38:15):
we're going to hear people are going to.
So you're saying someone else israising 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

(01:38:39):
Father. Why is Jesus, if God, in need of
being given this power by the Father?
It you note you have the this isthe exact same issue that you
have in in Daniel 7 where the the Son of man coming with the
clouds of heaven approaches the ancient of Days and he is given

(01:39:01):
authority, glory and sovereign power.
So that's why is he being given authority and glory and
sovereign power. 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

(01:39:21):
Daniel 7 was interpreted by anybody before?
Daniel saw a vision that's right.
This is this is this is one of the issues as far as the this is
one of the issues that comes up in, in the the two power, the 2
powers in heaven because it's again, Yahweh is the only one
who comes with the clouds in theOld Testament.
And here you have the son of manwho receives worship and so on

(01:39:44):
and is worshipped by all nations.
And but notice he approaches, heapproaches and then he's, he's
given authority, glory and sovereign power.
But if you if you if you line that up with the creed in
Philippians, if you line that upwith John 1 and and so on, you
get you get kind of a big picture and you can sit, you can
take like John 11 in the beginning was the word.
The word is with God. The word was God and then the

(01:40:05):
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 when it's in your relationships with one another
have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature
God, do not consider equality with God something to be used to
his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant.

(01:40:26):
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 that since you have the ending in Matthew where

(01:40:49):
Jesus approaches and he's worshipped there and he says
that all authority in heaven on earth has been given to him.
So the idea is he becomes a servant.
He's in very nature God he takes.
On the nature of a serpent. And then he lives as a servant.
And the the irony of the statement where, where, where he
says the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to

(01:41:09):
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 byall.
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 the dead. There's a lot here, right?
Yeah. I want to go right back because
we started with this idea of theSon of Man coming on the clouds,
meaning that he's Yahweh. Do you think that's how Daniel

(01:41:31):
interpreted his vision? Do you think that's how?
Daniel saw 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?

(01:41:52):
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 whoeverthe rightful Son of Man was who

(01:42:13):
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 theyshould 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, this, I'm talking about whatthe text says.
The Son of Man comes with the clouds of heaven.

(01:42:34):
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 mean, really, I don't know. I don't even know what.

(01:42:55):
To do If you're saying that I'm not talking about you talking
about anyone, yeah, 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 worshippedby all nations and has an ever
an everlasting Kingdom. If you're just reading that if,
if you put it this way, you. Didn't have the.
Ancient of days in the picture and you're reading this
description comes on the cloud of heavens worship by all
nations say obviously God the the the mystery comes in the

(01:43:16):
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 wejust can't have that.
Real quick. So we, we, we've gone through
about 20 minutes. David, are you comfortable
staying here or do you want to ask Alex some questions now?
No, we. We.
I'm just. Hoping to of course, the point

(01:43:38):
was or is in the Christological 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?

(01:44:00):
Do you think that that is the interpretation that the High
Priest had of the Daniellic vision of the Son of Man?
I would say they would obviouslyhave interpreted the that that
passage in Daniel or claim to bethe son of man in that sense.
If you were just, if you're justsaying, hey, I'm a son of man, I
think they'd be fine with it. Well, yeah, of course.

(01:44:20):
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. So you, you, you clarify that
and that's the point. Like a like a human being and
yet he comes with the clouds of heaven.
So he's, he's coming with the clouds of heaven is Yahweh, and
yet he's like the son of a man. That's right, you understand
this in the history. As far as as far as how they

(01:44:40):
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. So.
Is that enough to be so? Suppose that their
interpretation was, say, a messianic vision of Daniel 7,

(01:45:01):
this Carpenter claiming to be the Messiah.
Would that have been enough to accuse him of blasphemy?
Claiming to be massage not a nota death sentence all exactly all
kinds of. Exactly so.
So the reason I'm pressing this point is because when I say did
the high freeze believe that theSon 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.

(01:45:21):
It was quite confusing, but if Jesus wouldn't be accused of
blasphemy for merely claiming tobe 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 represent Israel,
which is another view, it has tobe.
Israel comes on the clouds of it.
Has to be. It is worshipped.
By all nations. I'm not.
That's my interpretation. I'm saying that in the history

(01:45:42):
of the interpretation of Daniel Seven, 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 recognise 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 donein that trial in order to get a
death sentence must have been tosay something that the high

(01:46:06):
priest immediately interpreted as him claiming to be Yahweh.
That means that he has to expectthat the coming Son of Man would
be Yahweh himself. Is that what the high priest
thought of Daniel's vision? Well, you're, you're you just
made an awesome case for me, right?
If he's just thinking of if he'sjust thinking of the the Son of
Man coming with the clouds of heaven as the Messiah, then oh,

(01:46:27):
OK, this guy claimed to be the Messiah.
Let's, let's, maybe we have to deal with the Romans or
something like that. But it's not, it's not, it's not
this tearing your clothes blasphemy sort of thing.
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.

(01:46:49):
That's it. So you come up, you try to you
try to explain it in other ways.Could this be the that doesn't
it just doesn't fit. Could this be the nation of
Israel? It doesn't fit.
There are all these interpretations, but but that's.
Clear. It's clear if a guy says you
will see the Son of Man coming with 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

(01:47:10):
you're right that I'm bolsteringthe 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.
So that's what they thought at that time, that it meant that

(01:47:33):
this son of man who they did expect to come would be Yahweh
himself. 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

(01:47:55):
Ancient of Days there, it would be indisputable.
That's talking about, that's talking about God.
But you've got the Ancient of Days there.
So what's the context of this 1st century?
They're dealing with this 2 powers in Heaven issue and they
don't know how to deal with it. They're coming.
They're coming up with all sortsof explanations for what they
for what, this second power. Is when does.
And then Jesus claims to be one of them.
When does the 2 powers in heavenlike Idea Heresy if you want to

(01:48:17):
call it that now like when does that begin to emerge?
BC. What evidence do you have of the
popularity of the two powers in heaven idea in Second Temple
Judaism? You well, I mean the the main
discussion that's that's used like in in in Seagal's, in
Siegel's book, yeah, the the later rabbinic commentaries.

(01:48:40):
But so you have. Yeah, in like the late 1st and
2nd century, right? Yeah, that's when, that's when
they're talking. About.
That's when they because they because it's.
It's a. Big deal.
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 that? As far as I understand, it's a

(01:49:00):
relatively fringe. Position so you have 1 you have
one you have all these issues that are in the Old Testament,
but then you have the the Targums you have the Targums
that are that are they're they're putting Old Testament
passages into Aramaic and so on and they start giving some
interesting some interesting translations of of some of these

(01:49:20):
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 bore Aaron says the ideas are
the ideas are already there because you have passages where
they're where they're interpreting the word, where
they're interpreting the word ofGod as a personal agent and so

(01:49:41):
on. So the idea is that that that
you know. His his drawing.
Parallel between that and his and John's Gospel.
His James James McGrath on On the 2 powers, the evidence
surveyed thus far gives no support.
For dating the origins of the controversy even to the 2nd
century it. Is of course possible.
That the controversy did arise in the 2nd century, but it has
not yet been sufficient had sufficient impact to leave any

(01:50:03):
clear or explicit trace in the traditions in literature from
that period. You when you when you have when
you have the rabbi's 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

(01:50:26):
priest would have had at Jesus trial if the 2000 and heaven
idea is something that only emerges in the late 1st and 2nd
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 setting, they're setting out.
What I'm asking is, is why is itthat if this is already a
controversy that has emerged andis extent to the to the extent

(01:50:47):
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's what?
Traditions do you have? Why not?
Well. What?
What? What commentaries are you
talking about from the 1st century?
Well, that's a, that's a silencething 'cause I'm, I don't have
commentary. Well, I could.
What commentaries do I have thatdon't mention it?
That's a bit of a broad questionI'm asking.
What point if I have to? Do if you're, if the rabbi's are

(01:51:09):
talking about these earlier controversies and they're
dealing with because you have you have the Christians went
went one way with it. You have the Gnostics.
It became an issue for the Gnostics because the Gnostics
interpreted they believed in the2 powers in heaven and they said
they're basically in conflict. The 2 powers are in conflict.
And so the Gnostics ran with that, and then you had Jewish
Mystics, Jewish Mystics who wererunning with the issue.

(01:51:31):
You think the Gnostics believed in the 2 powers in Heaven?
Heresy as as you've described it.
They believed. They believed in the 2 powers.
Powers, but actually they went 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.

(01:51:52):
You've got Son of man coming with the clouds in Ancient of
Days, you've got of God and the word of God, you've got Paul
calling the Father God and calling Jesus Lord and so on.
So you see it all over there. They have the 2 powers, but the
2 powers are in harmony and havealways been.
So the Gnostics believed in the 2 powers and they believe that

(01:52:13):
they're in they're they believe that they're in conflict and so
then you. So anyway the.
Point is OK look and I really don't know here but I'm I think
that this hinges on the evidencethat the 2 powers in heaven idea
is a popular enough controversy in the time of Jesus in Jesus

(01:52:35):
lifetime that the high priest ofthe Sikh would have believed it
and and as far as I can see you.Can tell what he believed by how
he reacts. So, so you do think that this is
what he believes then? Like you're committing yourself
to that view. In other words, that this is the
view that the high priest had ofDaniel seven, that the Son of
Man would be Yahweh. That even before Jesus came
along, this high priest must have read Daniel.

(01:52:56):
Seven. I have no idea.
He. Could have a range of ideas, but
you just say you. Can't you 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 seven, could the high priest have that would cause him

(01:53:18):
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

(01:53:38):
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.

(01:53:59):
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 who blessed him?
He's asking for clarification onwhat he's saying.
What are you saying? What are you telling?
Us OK, 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

(01:54:22):
Messiah. If Jesus is asked are you the
Messiah and he responds by quoting Daniel 7.
If one of the interpretations ofDaniel 7 is that it's talking
about the Messiah, then why would they not just think he was
claiming to be the Messiah? He obviously didn't give them
them that impression if they they said he deserves death for
it. And by the way, by the way, this

(01:54:43):
is connected, you can you can actually tell what happens.
I mean, you brought up the passage in Acts 7.
I mean, Steven, Steven is givinghis entire case for belief in
Jesus as the Messiah. They never get violent.
Then he rebukes them the harshest way you can possibly
your, you killed all the, your ancestors killed all the
prophets and you guys killed theMessiah.
If they're just going to get ticked off at rebuke or insults

(01:55:06):
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? Why is it?
Why are they interpreting as exactly?
Why aren't they interpreting that as?
He's just saying that Jesus is the Messiah.
That's exactly right. Yeah.
OK. Why do they think that?

(01:55:28):
We got, we got to, we got to move 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 guys. Hey, oh gosh, 1/2. 1/2.
All right, so check it out righthere where Ray is right here
where Ray is. You guys go, go to Rayrock right

(01:55:49):
here in the very front. Check, check, check.
Yes, get 4 minutes on the on theclock for the conclusions.
All right, in my opening statement, I point out you, you
basically have a controversy. We know that there's a
controversy going on and we see how we see how Christians are
responding to that. And basically, up until

(01:56:10):
Orthodoxy defines the 2 powers issue as heresy, you had a wide
range of views, a wide range of interpreting these various texts
and so on. It's pretty clear what happens
when Jesus comes along and we looked.
I actually quit. It's interesting.

(01:56:30):
I quoted multiple passages in Mark and I quoted Q as far as
Jesus saying that 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 assume that that he was going
to reject John. And so I was quoting the, the,

(01:56:50):
the some of our earlier materialand then the Creed and
Philippians and so on. Where know if you notice, 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 Angelof the Lord is Yahweh.
And Yahweh says that he's the Angel.
You have the Ancient of days andthe Son of man coming with the

(01:57:13):
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, Paul saying God the Father is
God and Jesus is Lord. And they also bring in the the

(01:57:36):
Son of man in the ancient of days with, 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, it 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.

(01:57:57):
Judge the world. And raise the dead at the
resurrection. We look at what his followers
say, 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 caused people to either worship
him and start praying to him anddoxologies and so on, or saying

(01:58:20):
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 hearit.
That's very different from saying everyone got the message
horribly, horribly wrong and so.I just wanted to conclude here
with the last minute I wanted torevisit the.

(01:58:46):
Famous quote from CS Lewis Famous quote from CS Lewis that
the trilema. The problem with the trilema was
that it didn't rule out. 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

(01:59:06):
the case because everyone concludes this.
It's all over the place. It's in our earliest material,
and 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's persecuting people for
calling on the name of Jesus theway they're calling on the name
of the Lord. This means that the early church
had this view and the other option would be Jesus is a

(01:59:28):
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 is horribly misunderstanding.
And so when we rule those out, Ithink 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

(01:59:48):
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 madman or

(02:00:08):
something worse. You can shut him up for a fool,
you can spit at him and kill himas 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

(02:00:35):
from Alex. Yeah, I mean, 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 relationshiphe 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 Christological

(02:00:58):
position, he describes his relationship with the Father in
terms that he then attributes to1st 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

(02:01:19):
can all be 1, 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 someserious question marks.
Of course, a lot of David's casehas relied on this 2 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

(02:01:39):
goes on to say, and this is in the only true God, early
Christian monotheism in it's 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 polemic against 2 powers in

(02:02:02):
later writings and the complete absence of such polemic in
earlier writings, this at least strongly suggests the
possibility that the 2 powers only became an issue for
whatever reason in the period after those documents were put
in their present form. In other words, this 2 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.

(02:02:22):
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

(02:02:44):
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, the same thing with judgement, by the way, which
David keeps coming back to, which God also delegates to

(02:03:06):
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 judgement.
The example I gave was delegating judgement of the 12
tribes of 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 12 tribes of Israel.Meanwhile, Judas is currently

(02:03:27):
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
delegating his judgement. Why is he taking all of these
divine prerogatives and giving them to human beings if he's
more than just a human being himself?

(02:03:48):
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 the non gospel New Testament sources is exalted
given the name above every othername.
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.

(02:04:09):
I mean, we got quite caught up in there in the nature of
blasphemy and what Jesus could have been claiming.
Again, I'll just press the pointthat if you want to accept that
Jesus couldn't have been accusedof blasphemy for anything other
than claiming to be our way. And yet all he really did was
quote Daniel 7. Then you have to believe that at
the time of Jesus trial it was popular enough within Jewish

(02:04:30):
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 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 I would love to hear your answer on this.

(02:04:50):
I'm going to throw monkey wrenchin this whole thing.
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? Theosis, the process of humans
attaining likeness to in union with God, participating in the
divine energies and divine nature and experience in
community with the Holy. If we're adding the Eastern

(02:05:13):
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 andthen 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 course, constantly
Jesus is using the word cathos or cathos cathos, which means

(02:05:36):
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.
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.

(02:05:57):
OK, cool. All right, we're going to go to
questions. So let's Rayrock got it.
We're. Going to get through this real
quick. You got a question, everyone,
Avery. All right, all right, for sure.
What's going on, guys? So this is a question for Alex,
man. How you doing, man?
Hey, you missed God logic. Yes.
Yes, Sir, you mentioned in Hebrews 1 where you know, God is

(02:06:21):
speaking, you know, God spoke toour, you know, you know, 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 just want to read youthis and get your thoughts on
this, OK? It's Hebrews 11 regarding Moses.
It says by faith Moses, and I'm just skip down to the 25 and 26

(02:06:44):
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 disapprovalif Christ wasn't around for him

(02:07:07):
to disapprove? Yeah, that is a great question.
So Christ there, he regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ
as a greater value than the treasure 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 Christological interpretation

(02:07:29):
of this, which sort of says thatChrist is promised as the
Redeemer of mankind. And we're looking at this in
retro. Where's he gone?
Oh, there you are. Just dropped it and left.
And I suppose we're we're looking at this in retrospect.
And he regarded disgrace for thesake of Christ.
Yeah, I do. I do think that in this instance
Hebrews is probably presenting Jesus as I don't know about the

(02:07:53):
Angel of Yahweh, but certainly we're looking at a high
Christology in in Hebrews. Yeah.
So close, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I see what you're. Saying let's go to the next
question 'cause. We only got 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 Christology that that's

(02:08:14):
not, that's kind of, that's kindof not an issue to me.
But I think it is interesting tosuggest 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.
We got a question for David Woodreal quick.
Gentlemen, thank you for a wonderful debate.

(02:08:34):
Doctor Wood, regarding the I AM statements of Jesus and the
Gospel of John, the most palpable, powerful divine
statements by Christ, why do youbelieve that?
They are omitted from Mark, fromQ, 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

(02:08:54):
other sources. Did I bring up the I am
statements? Who brought them up?
That's the. It's it, it is fascinating.
If you walk in and you say, all right, I'm going to quote all
these passages and John, they go, it's too late.
It's the latest source. You can't trust that.
It's clearly made-up later and so on.

(02:09:15):
And so you say, OK, let me just go with the earliest material.
Go cue Mark and Paul and then it's well, what about John?
That's very interesting. So I can't quote John, but they
can quote John. These are these are these are
awesome times. One I, I think the, I think the,
I think the synoptic gospel writers are focusing on
different theological issues. And so in, in, in Mark, for

(02:09:41):
instance, you have the, you havethe announcement, you have the
announcement that John the Baptist is preparing the way for
Jesus. But he actually quotes 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

(02:10:01):
forgive sins? This guy calls him, this guy
says that he's the Lord of the Sabbath.
You, you, you do have, you do have an IM statement there in
Mark 650. But there are there are passages
where it could just be, it couldjust be translated as as it is
I, which is why I don't point tothese, but they are, they are
there. And that's the context where it

(02:10:22):
would make sense because this isthis is this is a really
powerful religious moment for them.
So you could interpret it that way.
But since since it's kind of ambiguous, I don't.
But as far as as far as why material is quoted in.
John, that's not quoted in othergospels.
Again, I think they're focusing on different issues.

(02:10:44):
You look at Mark, it's very action based.
Jesus went here, did this. Jesus went here, there and did
that. And yet you have it unfolding to
who Jesus is claiming to be. He eventually, he eventually
gets to the point where once hisfollowers 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,

(02:11:05):
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 hereand did this.
It's not focusing a lot on Jesusteaching.
And then you get Matthew. He takes the same material, but
he includes he includes some long sermons and so on.
So he's including that material.Luke focuses more on parables

(02:11:26):
and so on. And John just.
Focuses John just focuses more on.
Personal encounters with Jesus, that's where you get his
interactions with Nicodemus and the woman at the well and Mary
and Martha and Lazarus focusing on personal encounters and some
of the Christological claims. But one of the mistakes people
make is saying, oh these and this lots of scholars make this

(02:11:48):
mistake is John must be late because of all these this high
Christology and Christological 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
Christology than what you find in Paul.
So we know the we know the extremely high Christology is
very, very early. But yeah, I think, I think the
writers are focusing on on different things.

(02:12:10):
All right, I'll try to sneak in two real quick.
Here's a quick one. Hey Steven Nelson from Cross
Bible, I have a question about Philippians 26 through 7.
Is it about the Greek? You both argued about it.
Yeah, 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 is coming from the

(02:12:32):
NIV who being in the very nature, in very nature God.
And then take the NASB for Morphi who as he already existed
in the form of God and Morphi Thayu and then he takes on the
form of a servant Morphi Dhulu. So can you guys justify why you
prefer those specific translations that you used of

(02:12:53):
the Greek word mortify and the Christ hymn in Philippians 2?
Let's start with Alex. Sure.
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.
It could be wrong, it could be the wrong idea.

(02:13:13):
It could mean existing in the form of God in the sense of
being like an exalted being, 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 the question of Paul's Christology
is secondary to the question of Jesus claiming to be God.
Of course, it is interesting whyPaul might have a high
Christology or that that itself is of course debated, but I

(02:13:36):
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, you run a biblical Greek cross comparison
website. So I I would love to know what
your interpretation of the verseis or the word I mean morphe.

(02:14:02):
Yeah, that was asked to both of us, I think.
But as far as yeah, I mean the morphae would the 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. Sounds like you're saying
somehow in nature God. And so that's their

(02:14:24):
interpretation, 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, I think it makes sense to say in nature God.
What doesn't make sense is what done does is he takes it as like

(02:14:44):
this means the image of God and it it just doesn't make sense
with the with the rest of the passage.
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 meansort of essence as in the morphe
of God, meaning like having the same sort of essence as God, if

(02:15:05):
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. No, that makes perfect sense if
I say someone changes appearanceor something like that.
And that makes perfect sense if I say someone is in the form of
of God, What could that possiblymean?
What? What does it mean to be in the

(02:15:26):
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 of God.
I. What else is in the form of God?
I can understand. What if I if I could, my form.
I know what it would mean to change into the form of that
guy. Yeah, well, I don't know what it
means. A change in the.
Form of If Duns interpretation is correct, which I don't know

(02:15:47):
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 it just makes no sense because that's before he
makes himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant
being made in. Yeah, that's the problem.

(02:16:08):
I think that's problem with Dunsinterpretation here, but it's no
problem with Morphy, which we can discuss that if you like.
As far as as far as the translation, totally.
Fine. Saying he.
Was in the form of God about 1. Made himself nothing.
It depends on how deep the form goes, but 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

(02:16:30):
taking his human form. Which I think is what?
David was getting as well, right?
Yeah. Well, thank you.
Excellent. I'm gonna sneak this last one in
here. Sure, fine by me.
Appreciate it. So this one's for Alex
primarily. OK, so in the Babylonian Talmud,
Sanhedrin 38 B, there's a discussion, a rabbinic
discussion about Daniel Chapter 7 and they're asking about the
verse. I looked till Thrones plural

(02:16:51):
were placed. It says one throne is for him
and one throne is for David. This is a statement of Rabbi
Akiba. Rabbi Yosei said to him Akiva
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? Because you're you're asking

(02:17:12):
about what did the High priest interpret the passage mean?
So. So why would the later rabbis of
the 2nd century or of the late 1st century have come up with an
interpretation saying the Son ofMan is God after the advent of
Christianity? Right.
OK, so so the passage says that there are two, this is from
Sanhedrin, right? Yes, that there are two Thrones,

(02:17:33):
one for justice, one for mercy. Yes, and this.
Was that's in response. To the Rabbinic, the concept of
Hamidot, the two the two forms of God, justice and mercy,
Elohim and out and I sure. OK, so in this interpretation,
which is Jesus and which is the Father?
Well, what I mean to say is if this is the interpretation in
mind you. Might need to clarify your

(02:17:55):
point. Which is the Father and which is
Jesus? Justice or mercy?
Which is which? No.
No, no, I this is, this is, thisis.
I mean, no, no, I'm I'm simply asking.
I'm simply asking because because 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.
Say what you said at the beginning first about who who

(02:18:15):
said what and what what the response was.
So Rabbi Akiva said one throne is for the Holy One and the
other is for David, meaning the Messiah.
And then Rabbi Yosei rebukes himand 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

(02:18:36):
justice. Or is it the other way around?
It's I don't. That's all Rabbi Yosei 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 11 is for, one is for.
Justice and one is for mercy. So, so the two Thrones are.
No, I just want for the ancient.Days in the Son of Man The
Ancient of Days is justice and the Son of Man.
No, no, no, no. Let me clarify.

(02:18:57):
Let me. Let me, let me.
Yeah, so the the point, the point is when it talks about,
when it talks about the two Thrones, the two Thrones being
brought, that Rabbi Akiva says OK, one is for God and one's for
the Messiah and someone else. 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.

(02:19:20):
They both have to be for God. They both have to be for God, so
they're interpreting the Thronesas 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 comment. The point is when you say this

(02:19:42):
is a human being, that the that the the Son of Man, the Son of
man is a human being. Rabbi Akiva said, hey, that's
the Messiah. And other people said, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
You can't say that because this is clearly a throne for the
divide. But there's only one God and
therefore both Thrones are for God and we got to separate.
Maybe I'm still just mishearing this, but after saying that,

(02:20:05):
after saying that, the explanation is that the Two
Thrones 1 is for justice, one isfor mercy, which you describe
described as God's attributes. Oh, sorry.
So what? So if I have been brought back
up to clarify my question, I'm so.
Sorry, it's back. I've been brought back up to
clarify my question so. Come back.

(02:20:25):
Alex, what I'm asking is so which figure is justice and
which one is mercy was not is not really it doesn't really
it's not really relevant here. I'm, I'm just saying it's, it's
rather that this is showing thatrabbis after the advent of
Christianity were recognizing the Son of Man in Daniel 7 as an
explicitly divine figure. Because when Rabbi Akiva says,

(02:20:47):
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 event of
Christianity, He's. Saying that they've had this
argument already and that withinthe Jewish Talmud they're
arguing about his throne. With.
Two guys. The point is, there are rabbis

(02:21:08):
who interpreted the Son of Man as.
God. OK, OK, look, I I for fear of.
Because you said it was implausible.
That's what he was responding toearlier.
You said it was. Implausible.
I understand that part. For.
For. For fear of further
misunderstanding, of further groans from the audience, I fear

(02:21:30):
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. Skip a round of applause.
Oh my gosh. All right, all right, ladies and
gentlemen, that concludes Alex O'Connor versus David Wood, the

(02:21:56):
Jesus claim to be God. You guys are getting a standing
applause. That was.
Fun. That was fun you.
Guys can do better than that. Wow.

(02:22:22):
I did not tell them to do that. That was completely unprovoked.
Thank you.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}David Wood Vs. Alex O'Connor: Did Jesus Claim to Be God

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

All Episodes

David Wood Vs. Alex O'Connor: Did Jesus Claim to Be God

Stuff You Should Know