Did Jesus Claim to be God?

Did Jesus claim to be God? The answer is made to seem difficult by Trinitarian Christian apologists, who want to force their answer to appear to be the truth, and it's made difficult by the Synoptic accounts, which depict Jesus as a mortal human with human limitations within the framework of first century Pharisaic Judaism.

The majority of the evidence for Jesus' claims to divinity comes from the Gospel of John, but the debate cannot rest only on a handful of passages put into the mouth of Jesus and his disciples in the Gospel of John.

Alex O'Conner is right to dismiss the claims in the Gospel of John on Surrounded on the Jubilee YouTube channel because of how it's not logical that the most grandiose and controversial claims of Jesus could go in silence and get passed over in a memory hole in all the other published works like Mark until a work as late as the Gospel of John.

The Synoptic Gospels contain important moments, which demonstrate that neither Jesus nor the authors considered him to be the God of the Hebrew Bible come down to earth in an incarnate form.

Who but God alone?

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”

Mark 10.17-18 NRSVUE

I've always been appalled at how the Trinitarian arguments are based on a vague misreading and twisting of a few passages in the Gospel of John when the counterarguments have always been so much stronger because if Jesus was the God of the Hebrew Bible come down to earth in incarnate form, then why would this incarnate God lie or deceive others by denying his incarnation?

Jesus outright denied being God or any equivalent to the God of the Hebrew Bible in Mark and in Matthew, which has Jesus stating the same basic thing, "Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good" (Matthew 19.17 NRSVUE). If Jesus was playing some dumb game or toying with the curious religious individual so as to say the opposite, to lie, to deceive, or mislead, then it's further proof that Jesus is not the God of the Hebrew Bible.

God is not a man, that he should lie, neither the son of man, that he should repent.

Numbers 23.19 NRSV

Jesus had a separate range of knowledge from God.

But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

Matthew 24.36 NRSV

If Jesus is God, then why is he different from God in knowledge? While Jesus and the Father can be "One" without elevating Jesus into godhood or onto the face of God as part of some godhead, Jesus cannot be God the Father in an incarnate form and have separate ranges of knowledge and abilities from God the Father.

Each of Jesus' human limitations are evidence that he is not the God of the Hebrew Bible, and not a single human limitation can be dismissed by changing the definition of the God of the Hebrew Bible to fascilitate the Trinity.

Who is Jesus praying to if he's God?

And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me, yet not what I want but what you want.”

Mark 14.35-36 NRSVUE

Why is God praying to God to express fear and doubt? Isn't Jesus the very God that he's praying to? Why is God afraid of himself by himself in a prayer to himself where he gives no indication whatsoever that he's in anyway the same being as the one he's praying to?

Then he said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me." And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want but what you want.”… Again he went away for the second time and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”

Matthew 26.38-39, 42 NRSVUE

It's like a meme with every statement that Jesus directs toward God being reworkable into a reference to himself, "Yeshua, Me, for me all things are possible, please me, remove this cup from myself, yet not what I what but what I want."

"My oh me, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, let my will be done," Jesus would be saying if he was an incarnate God tabernacling amongst human beings in the body of one person. "My soul is greatly grieved to death because of myself and what I'm about to do to myself, please, stay nearby while I go plead with myself."

God forsakes himself?

At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Mark 15.34 NSRVUE

Is God now a "house divided against itself" where part of God doesn't know what the other part of God is thinking? How can God forsake himself? How can God feel forsaken from himself?

If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.

Mark 3.24-25 NRSVUE

In order for Jesus to be God in the Trinity, then the God of the Hebrew Bible would have to be a house divided against himself. In the Gospel of John, their version of Jesus is made to say, "I and the Father are one" (10.30), however, in the Synoptics we do not see Jesus and the God, whom he prays to, as having a oneness or unity consistent with being the same being or of the same substance.

The version Jesus in the Gospel of John, who serves as an eponymous ancestor for the theological views of its community and authors, might give Trinitarian Christians enough confusing statements to twist into confirmations of the Trinity.

However, the Synoptics give a consistent portrayal, and it's a depiction that's impossible to navigate around using the spurious statements that comes from the false testimony in the Gospel of John.

Did Jesus claim to be God? No.

Did the Gospel of John blur the lines? Absolutely.