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Jesus' Divinity and the Exact-Word Fallacy

The speaker addresses the claim that Jesus never said he was God, identifying it as an exact-word fallacy. In the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus does not utter the precise sentence "I am God." However, he refers to himself as the Son of Man over eighty times, a title the speaker connects to his identity.

In the Gospel of John, the evidence becomes more explicit: Jesus states that he existed before Abraham, the apostle Thomas directly calls him God, and Jesus teaches that the Son is to be honored just as the Father is honored. The speaker concludes that the truth of Scripture is found in what the text teaches overall, not in whether a particular form of words appears.

Key moments

  1. The argument that Jesus never said he was God is based on an exact-word fallacy.
  2. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke Jesus never says the exact words "I am God."
  3. Jesus calls himself the Son of Man over eighty times, which the speaker says refers to humanity, not divinity.
  4. In John, Jesus declares that he existed before Abraham.
  5. Thomas addresses Jesus as God, and Jesus teaches that the Son deserves the same honor as the Father.
  6. The truth of Scripture is determined by what the text teaches, not by the words one demands.
5 opinions in the discussion 4 participants, 3 replies to each other The opinion with the most support In the beginning there was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Read the discussion
43 comments at the source Original on Instagram

Discussion · 5

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  • opinion#3246

    In the beginning there was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

    • opinion#3247

      Well for starters you are assuming the divine authority of the text to prove the divine authority of the person in the text. Secondly, this assumption completely ignores the historical reality that John was the final Gospel written and explicitly crafted at a time when the early Church's theology had already evolved to view Jesus as divine.

  • opinion#3245

    Jesus never said he was God. That's a fact. He never claimed divinity himself, that's also a fact. Second hand accounts 50 years after his death don't improve your arguments. And you failed to prove that Jesus made the claim you are trying to prove. Cope.

    • opinion#3248

      This proves my point about the evolution of myth. This doesn't somehow prove your point. This is a circular reason fallacy. To argue that this verse represents the literal words or self-understanding of an Aramaic-speaking peasant preacher from rural Galilee in 30 CE is completely unhistorical. Ironically it is a prime example of reading later church doctrine backward into history and claiming it as factual. 😂. Try again.

    • opinion#3249

      "that's a fact" yet being critical on the texts itself is quite contradictory😂. Your argument makes no sense at allx because if you are consistent we don't have a single idea what he said and you can't say what he did not. Or we do know what he said to an extent. And we know how his earliest followers saw him. Your argument is weak