Week 10

Chapter 8 - Who Was Jesus?

Class Date: October 23, 2025

Contents

Click on the links below to be taken to that section.

Introduction

The veracity of the Christian faith depends on two things about Jesus: that He is the Christ and that he rose from the dead.

This chapter is titled, “Who Was Jesus?” and we’ll look at the resurrection of Jesus in the next chapter.

In order to answer the question, “Who Was Jesus?”, one of the things we need to do is examine whether the Gospels, where His life and teachings are recorded, are reliable.

Dr. Craig points out that Jesus didn't leave behind any writings of His own and therefore we are dependent on what others wrote to learn what He said and did.

Since we are dependent on what others wrote, the question that arises is whether these records are historically accurate. One way of doing that is to learn how we got the Gospels, and the Bible, from the early manuscripts.

There are two main parts to this chapter: an examination of the reliability of the Bible and claims of Jesus.

Historical Reliability of the Bible

In the first part, we'll examine the historical reliability of the Bible by watching a video titled, "Can You Really Trust the Bible?" by Wes Huff.

Can You Really Trust the Bible?

Link: Is there any evidence for the historicity of the Bible? - YouTube

Books Mentioned in the Video

Other videos by Wes Huff that may interest you:

Wes Huff's YouTube channel can be found at Wes Huff - YouTube.

Claims of Jesus

Starting with the section, "Explicit Claims" (p.196), Dr. Craig discusses three claims of Jesus: His claims to be the Messiah, the unique Son of God, and the Son of Man. For the topic of the claims of Jesus, I'll just let you read in On Guard.

But what I'd like to mention on a related note are two things: (1) the percentage of Americans who believe Jesus is not God, and (2) the fact that not all Bible scholars believe that Jesus claimed to be God.

Americans Who Do Not Believe Jesus was God

In a 2025 survey titled, The State of Theology, one of the questions respondents were asked was if they agreed or disagreed with this statement: "Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God."

Among the general population of US (all ages), 21 percent indicated they somewhat agreed, and 28% strongly agreed with the statement, "Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God."

What I found interesting (and disturbing) was the results for those respondents who attended an evangelical church, were evangelical in their beliefs, and attended church at least once or twice a month. Four percent somewhat agreed and 12 percent strongly agreed with the statement, "Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God." So, in other words, 16 percent of church-attending evangelicals agreed that Jesus was not God.

Among different age groups of evangelicals, the largest percentage who agreed with the statement that Jesus was not God were the 18-34 year olds. Twenty-one percent of them or approximately one in five of them strongly agreed with the statement that Jesus was not God.

You can find more information that I have written about this survey by going to this webpage - Beliefs among Evangelicals.

Bible Scholars Who Do Not Believe Jesus Claimed to be God

As you know, we believe that Jesus claimed to be God. What you might find surprising is that there are Bible scholars who believe that Jesus never claimed to be God. One of those people is Bart Ehrman, a professor at North Carolina State University. Ehrman is a popular author among atheists and agnostics. You'll learn more about his writings (and about authors who have offered counterarguments) in the section below titled, "Bart Ehrman, a Bible Scholar & Agnostic, Believes Jesus Didn't Claim to be God]".

Bart Ehrman, a Bible Scholar & Agnostic, Believes Jesus Didn't Claim to be God

There are modern authors, such as Bart Ehrman, who assert that Jesus never claimed to be God.[1]

Bart Ehrman is a professor of Religious Studies at North Carolina University and is an agnostic. He attended Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College for his bachelor's degree, and then went to Princeton Theological Seminary where he earned an M.Div. and Ph.D. He is a prolific writer of popular-level books and his most popular book is Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. Here's a portion of the description of the book at Amazon: "Religious and biblical scholar Bart Ehrman makes the provocative case that many of our widely held beliefs concerning the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the divine origins of the Bible itself are the results of both intentional and accidental alterations by scribes." "....Ehrman shows where and why changes were made in our earliest surviving manuscripts, explaining for the first time how the many variations of our cherished biblical stories came to be, and why only certain versions of the stories qualify for publication in the Bibles we read today." - from Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D.Ehrman.

The following books have been written that offer counterarguments to what Ehrman claims in Misquoting Jesus:

Related to the reliability of the Bible, Ehrman has debated the topic, "Are the Gospels Based on Eyewitness Testimony":

Ehrman has also debated on the question of the historical reliability of the Gospels:

In another book by Ehrman, titled, How Jesus Became God, Ehrman "argues that Jesus himself did not claim to be God, but that his followers came to believe in his divinity only after his death, particularly after experiences they interpreted as appearances of the risen Jesus." (from ChatGPT).

There have been several books that were written as counterarguments to what Ehrman states in How Jesus Became God.

Video response to Ehrman's assertion that Jesus did not claim to be God:

Here is a list of debates in which Ehrman asserts that Jesus did not claim to be God:

Digging Deeper

The following is a list of resources to consider and does not necessarily indicate their endorsement.

Historical Reliability of the Bible

Videos

Books

Jesus' Divinity

Footnotes

  1. See this in Perplexity - Are there any modern authors who state that Jesus did not claim to be God? and in Grok - Grok. ↩︎