بارت ايرمن يعترف بنبوة محمد عليه الصلاة و السلام

[عبد الله مجاهد]

My interest in this book, however, is on a theological/religious question of how (and when) Jesus came to be thought of as God. And my argument is that this is not what Jesus himself spent his days teaching and preaching during his public ministry. Quite the contrary, the burden of his message was an apocalyptic proclamation of coming destruction and salvation: he declared that the Son of Man would be coming on the clouds of heaven, very soon, in judgment on the earth, and people needed to prepare for this cataclysmic break in history, as a new kingdom would arrive in which the righteous would be vindicated and rewarded for remaining true to God and doing what God wanted them to do, even when it led to suffering.

[عبد الله مجاهد]

Jesus’s Messianic Self-Understanding


IN VIEW OF THIS discussion, what can we say about how Jesus most likely understood himself? Did he call himself the messiah? If so, what did he mean by it? And did he call himself God? Here I want to stake out a clear position: messiah, yes; God, no.
I think there are excellent reasons for thinking that Jesus imagined himself as the messiah, in a very specific and particular sense. The messiah was thought to be the future ruler of the people of Israel. But as an apocalypticist, Jesus did not think that the future kingdom was going to be won by a political struggle or a military engagement per se. It was going to be brought by the Son of Man, who came in judgment against everyone and everything opposed to God. Then the kingdom would arrive. And I think Jesus believed he himself would be the king in that kingdom.