The Deification of Jesus - Part 5

These series of posts are a non-literalist Christian's exploration of images of Jesus as Divine in Christianity and the New Testament. I am examining where these images came from and the reasons they were created. I would also like to explore their meanings to those who created them and what meaning they may hold for myself and others today.

In the first installment, I looked at the image of Jesus as one with God in the Trinity Doctrine popular in Christianity. The argument was made that this doctrine was not original to the earliest traditions of Christianity or the Gospels of the New Testament, but evolved over time to meet the needs of the Christian community.

I also explored the idea that the deification of Jesus in general was not original to the earliest traditions and also developed over time. As part of this, I investigated the diversity of early Christian thought in writings not included in our New Testament. Many of these traditions did not view Jesus as Divine and criticized what are now common Christian beliefs, such as the virgin birth or the bodily resurrection, as naïve misunderstandings. I began the investigation of images of Jesus in the New Testament with the oldest of the Synoptic Gospels, the book of Mark. Like the other Synoptic Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus is portrayed as considering himself the messiah, the future king of the Jews of the Messianic Age, but not as Divine, or somehow equal to God. There are, however, descriptions of him able to access special favor with God, and as such God would perform miracles and mighty deeds at his request. There is also mention of special abilities due to his intimacy with God.

In the two previous posts I investigated the images the community of the Gospel of Mark used to express who Jesus had become to them and whether any of them portrayed Jesus as in any sense Divine, or more than human. I found four main titles/images for Jesus. Looking through the rest of the Gospel I find these images repeated and re-emphasized, but no new ones. So, I will just review these four images before moving to the next Gospel.


1.  Jesus as "Messiah"

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. (Mark 1:1)

The opening verse of the book of Mark gives Jesus the title, "the Messiah". The word, "Messiah", means literally, "the anointed one". This title comes with a lot of baggage to the modern reader, but in Jewish Scripture the anointed one was a person who had been set apart or chosen by God for a special purpose such as to be king of the Jewish nation. Both Saul and David were anointed by the prophet Saul to announce that they had been chosen by God to be king. So the Markian community is not only calling him king, they are claiming that he is God's chosen king.


2.  Jesus as "Son of God"

Notice here that the title, "the Son of God", is a repetition or further clarification of the preceding title, "the Messiah".  The title, "the Son of God" has a similar meaning.  It is the title that God gives his chosen king of the people of Israel.  For example, King David reports God as having said that David's son Solomon, "...shall be my Son, and I will be his Father,". (1 Chronicles, chapter 22:10). Neither David, who was also given this name, or Solomon, were considered to be in any way more than human in the Jewish tradition.




3.  Jesus as "Son of Man"

The favorite title the Jesus of Mark gives himself throughout the book is, "Son of Man", literally in Hebrew, "human being". Although this title is most often used by God in the Hebrew Scriptures to address one of his Prophets to emphasize the difference between God's divine stature and the Prophet's mortal humanity, Jesus was most likely referring to the description of the final king in Daniel's vision who is pictured as being, "like a son of man". This figure in Daniel's vision is given authority and everlasting dominion over the earth. Some have interpreted this figure as being angelic in nature and as such the Jesus of Mark is claiming to be more than human. However, closer examination of Daniel's vision suggests otherwise.
As the four preceding kings portrayed as beasts in the vision are explained within the vision as representing mortal human kings, there is no reason to believe that the fifth king is not also a human being represented in a figurative way. It was also noted that if the writer of Mark wanted to infer that Jesus was more than human with the use of this title, the title would have been, "The One Like a Son of Man", rather than just, The Son of Man".

Having Jesus claim this title is a reinforcement and expansion on the message of the two previous titles, Messiah and Son of God. Jesus is presented as not only God's chosen king of Israel, but is the king promised in Jewish apocalyptic literature to bring in the messianic age of a new intimacy between God and his people and will be given dominion over all the nations.

4.  Jesus as Miracle Worker

This image was not expressed with a title, but is a common theme in the Gospel to portray Jesus as being "accredited" or "backed" by God.  This would have been important to the Gospel writer since Jesus was a self appointed Rabbi and not ordained or formally recognized by Jewish Religious Authority and as such did not hold the right by tradition to give his own interpretations or teaching.

In the first chapter of Mark I looked at Jesus' miracles of healing and exorcism.  I discussed the fact that such acts were commonly attributed to great figures in the literature of the times both Jewish and Gentile. This was a  common literary device used to establish the importance and legitimacy of the figure.  As such, we can hardly consider this as a statement by the author of Mark on Jesus' Divinity.

In the next post I will begin this same process with the Gospel of Matthew of examining the images of the writer uses to express the significance of Jesus to his community and explore if any of these include a suggestion of Jesus being Divine, or more than human.