Do They Hear Themselves When They Speak - Part 4: The Village Skeptic

Sometimes I wonder if who argue against what the Gospels, when correctly understood, teach about Yeshua hear themselves when they say things like “He did not claim to be God!” and “He never said that He should be worshipped!”

By way of reply: 

1. They all know, or ought to know, full well that in addition to being characters in the historical narrative told in the Book of Acts, some of the characters in Acts also authored at least one Gospel & the authors of the Gospels overlap with the authors of the rest of the New Testament (with the possible exception of Revelation). 

Why would Luke’s Christology differ with that of Paul & Silas with whom Luke traveled from time to time?  Why would John’s Christology differ within his own body of work?  

2. “He never said He was God!!” That’s an argument from silence.  The Bible, at best, paraphrases what Yeshua said.   Expressed as a literal number, the Gospels record few if any of the actual words that He spoke.  What matters is whether or not what the authors wrote is an accurate representation of who Yeshua was/is or, at barest minimum, the authors’ words amount to an accurate depiction of what they themselves believed about Yeshua. 

3. “He never said that he should be worshipped!” For starters that’s like saying that a nurse stuck in traffic due to a major traffic accident who decides to pull over to help until paramedics arrive isn’t really a nurse because she didn’t trumpet her identity.  

4.  What matters is what the authors wrote, regardless of what they themselves believed.  In other words, Christology is derived from the exegesis/exposition of their words.  

Do their words, as a matter of Historical Theology, when correctly understood, teach the high Christology of the majority of the Christian churches, or do they teach the low Christology of Islam & any number of world religions who object to what the historical majority of Christian theologians & apologists have believed & taught for the past 2000 years or so?

May God bless us all, each and every one, & “Go and sin no more.”