The Case For Christ

of himself in those terms or because he had other reasons?"
"No, it's not because he didn't think of himself in those terms,"
Witherington said as he settled into his chair and crossed his
legs. "If he had simply announced, 'Hi, folks; I'm God,' that
would have been heard as 'I'm Yahweh,' because the Jews of his
day didn't have any concept of the Trinity. They only knew of God
the Father-whom they called Yahweh-and not God the Son or God the
Holy Spirit. So if someone were to say he was God, that wouldn't
have made any sense to them and would have been seen as clear-cut
blasphemy. And it would have been counterproductive to Jesus in
his efforts to get people to listen to his message.
Besides, there were already a host of expectations about what the
Messiah would look like, and Jesus didn't want to be pigeon-holed
into somebody else's categories. Consequently, he was very
careful about what he said publicly. In private with his
disciples-that was a different story, but the gospels primarily
tell us about what he did in public."
EXPLORING THE EARLIEST TRADITIONS
It was a 1977 book by British theologian John Hick and half a
dozen like-minded colleagues that prompted a firestonn of
controversy by charging that Jesus never thought of himself as
God incarnate or the Messiah. These concepts, they wrote,
developed later and were written into the gospels so it appeared
that Jesus was making these claims about himself
To explore that allegation, Witherington has gone back to the
very earliest traditions about Jesus-the most primitive material,
unquestionably safe from legendary development-and discovered
persuasive
clues concerning how Jesus really regarded himself.
I wanted to delve into that research, starting with this
question: "What clues can we find about Jesus' self-understanding
from the way he related to others?"
Witherington thought for a moment, then replied, "Look at his
relationship with his disciples. Jesus has twelve disciples, yet
notice that he's not one of the Twelve."
While that may sound like a detail without a difference,
Witherington said it's quite significant.
"If the Twelve represent a renewed Israel, where does Jesus fit
in?" he asked. "He's not just part of Israel, not merely part of
the redeemed group, he's forming the group-just as God in the Old