Richard is very thorough and works only with minimal facts that skeptical scholars will agree with. James Crossley is an excellent atheist, knowledgeable and respectful.

The debate goes for 80 minutes. I wrote a summary so you can follow along as you listen. This summary is rated “N” for Not Snarky.

Summary

Main topic:
– was belief in Jesus’ divinity develop late, or was it there from the beginning?
– how did the early Jewish community reconcile the idea of Jesus’ divinity with monotheism?

Moderator:
– was the the worship of Jesus as God a late development in history
– was it accepted by converts from the Jewish community

Bauckham:
– high Christology was not a result of pagan influences
– Jews reconciled Jesus’ divinity with their Jewish monotheism

Moderator:
– is the degree of Christology a historian is willing to accept just the result of bias?

Crossley:
– bias is always a factor in what individual people think
– but in a public discussion, what matters is the evidence

Moderator:
– High-Christology is used by Christians as an argument for the resurrection
– Christians ask: what cause could account for the effect of early high Christology?

Crossley:
– we agree that the first Christians witnessed something after Jesus’ death
– what they witnessed had a role in their forming their high opinion of Jesus
– the high opinion was because they believed he had been resurrected (1 Cor 15)
– whether he was or not is a separate question

Moderator:
– is a high Christology a good argument for inferring the resurrection?

Bauckham:
– the resurrection makes people think Jesus is unique, but not necessarily divine
– it was really the belief in the exaltation of Jesus to God’s right hand that did it
– what God does in Judaism is to create the universe and rule over the universe
– if Jesus is seated at God’s right hand, then is participating in ruling creation
– so Jesus is being identified with God very early
– the exaltation might have been caused by post-mortem visions of Jesus, e.g. – Stephen

Moderator:
– how were early monotheistic Jews able to reconcile the divinity of Jesus with monotheism?

Crossley:
– the high Christology may not be early because disputes about it are going on in John
– there were other figures in Judaism like the Word of God and Wisdom that were very high
– maybe Paul’s Christology is not as high and he is thinking something high but not deity
– and in John the Christology is being pushed higher to deity, and then there are disputes

Moderator:
– Phillipians and 1 Corinthians are the first evidences of what people thought about Jesus
– John is actually much later

Crossley:
– it may be that Paul’s Christology is high and that he just never got into any disputes

Bauckham:
– in Phillipians, Paul incorporates Jesus into the shema, the core of Jewish monotheism
– in 1 Corinthians, he does the same thing

Moderator:
– is this evidence consistent with the idea that Jesus is more like Wisdom or the Word of God

Crossley:
– in Paul’s letters, there are no conflicts about Jesus’ divinity, they appear later in John
– if Paul’s letters taught a divine Jesus, there would be conflicts in the letters
– so there is possibly an evolving Christology from very high to divine

Bauckham:
– the Word and Wisdom of God are different from exalted figures – they are separate
– the Word and Wisdom of God are intrinsic to God’s own identity
– and so Word and Wisdom are divine in the sense that they below to God’s identity

Moderator:
– is Jesus an exalted human figure or someone identified with God?
– is the identification of Jesus with divinity compatible with Jewish monotheism?
– or was this concept developed later in a pagan context where one more God would not matter?

Bauckham:
– NT scholars typically separate functional Christology and ontic Christology
– but I say that there is no such disctinction
– if Jesus does the functions of God (like ruling), then it means he is identified with God
– there is a distinction between who God is (identity) and what God is (nature)
– Jews were not as concerned with the identification of a man with the God
– Jews were disturbed by the idea that THIS shamed and crucified man would be identified with God

Moderator:
– is this high Christology too much of a sharp break with Jewish monotheism to have been early?

Crossley:
– the Phillipians passage is a strong early passage for Richard’s view
– definitely the crucifixion is a major problem for the early Jewish monotheists
– but the deification of a human being is also a strong problem in spite of what Richard says
– both Jews and Muslims will have objections to identifying Jesus with the divine

Moderator:
– How can Paul write something like this when he was such a high-ranking Jew?

Bauckham:
– Jewish monotheism could accomodate something surprising like this without surrendering anything
– John starts his gospel at the creation of the universe to say Jesus was there as “the Word”

Moderator:
– was the early church thinking of Jesus the same way that the church today does?

Crossley:
– it’s hard to say because the language today reflects a lot of development
– in the early church people were still thinking about what to make of Jesus

Moderator:
– what about in the other gospels, do they indicate a strong notion of Jesus as divine?

Crossley:
– nothing as strong as Paul’s letters and John, especiall the disputes with the Jews

Moderator:
– so did the writers of the other gospels have different views of Jesus’ divinity than Paul and John?

Crossley:
– well the same claims are not there in the text, the claims are not as grand as in Paul and John

Bauckham:
– but in Mark, the earliest gospel, Jesus forgives sins and calms storm – acting as God acts
– Jesus also asks “why do call me good, only God is good”
– the “seated at the right hand of God” and “coming on the clouds” passages

Crossley:
– I don’t think those claims are as high as John, because Moses controls nature as well
– the other actions may be more that Jesus has authority to do these things

Moderator:
– but the author of Mark writes that the disciples are catching on that Jesus was more than a man

Bauckham:
– Jews were not as concerned with the unitary nature of God, but there is only one God (being)
– there can’t really be any evolution from Jesus as a created being to Jesus as divine
– in paganism, there are lower divinities, but that is not the case in Jewish monotheism

Moderator:
– the fact that Jesus was worshiped by Jews means he was already viewed as divine

Crossley:
– that point is debatable, but can be sustained with a careful exegesis like Richard does
– there is some room there for an evolving Christology – the gap may not be as big as Richard says

Moderator:
– do you think that the worship of Jesus was the result of increasing Christology over time?

Crossley:
– it may not have been conscious, but John is the clearest statement and it is the latest gospel
– it may be that a dispute with Jews was required to spell it out even if it was present before

Moderator:
– what about idea that the early church worshiped him because they just though it was a new revelation?

Bauckham:
– the early Christians worshiped as Jews and then met separately afterward to worship Jesus
– worship is about distinguishing God from the created world
– you wouldn’t worship Jesus without some idea of what you were doing

Crossley:
– other things that set Jesus apart were the exorcisms and the vision to Paul that converted him

Richard is very thorough and works only with minimal facts that skeptical scholars will agree with. James Crossley is an excellent atheist. I used to think he was mean, but now he seems so reasonable. I hope someone can befriend him and introduce him to some of the evidence for theism from the progress of science, so that he can perhaps becomes a Christian.

Here is the MP3 file.

I wrote a summary so you can follow along as you listen.

More stuff

In another recent discussion, Richard Bauckham defends the reliability of the gospels against James Crossley. Crossley debated against William Lane Craig before on the resurrection and he debated against Michael Bird here, (part 1, part 2). The topic was “How did Christianity Begin?”.

Summary

Main topic:
– was belief in Jesus’ divinity develop late, or was it there from the beginning?
– how did the early Jewish community reconcile the idea of Jesus’ divinity with monotheism?

Moderator:
– was the the worship of Jesus as God a late development in history
– was it accepted by converts from the Jewish community

Bauckham:
– high Christology was not a result of pagan influences
– Jews reconciled Jesus’ divinity with their Jewish monotheism

Moderator:
– is the degree of Christology a historian is willing to accept just the result of bias?

Crossley:
– bias is always a factor in what individual people think
– but in a public discussion, what matters is the evidence

Moderator:
– High-Christology is used by Christians as an argument for the resurrection
– Christians ask: what cause could account for the effect of early high Christology?

Crossley:
– we agree that the first Christians witnessed something after Jesus’ death
– what they witnessed had a role in their forming their high opinion of Jesus
– the high opinion was because they believed he had been resurrected (1 Cor 15)
– whether he was or not is a separate question

Moderator:
– is a high Christology a good argument for inferring the resurrection?

Bauckham:
– the resurrection makes people think Jesus is unique, but not necessarily divine
– it was really the belief in the exaltation of Jesus to God’s right hand that did it
– what God does in Judaism is to create the universe and rule over the universe
– if Jesus is seated at God’s right hand, then is participating in ruling creation
– so Jesus is being identified with God very early
– the exaltation might have been caused by post-mortem visions of Jesus, e.g. – Stephen

Moderator:
– how were early monotheistic Jews able to reconcile the divinity of Jesus with monotheism?

Crossley:
– the high Christology may not be early because disputes about it are going on in John
– there were other figures in Judaism like the Word of God and Wisdom that were very high
– maybe Paul’s Christology is not as high and he is thinking something high but not deity
– and in John the Christology is being pushed higher to deity, and then there are disputes

Moderator:
– Phillipians and 1 Corinthians are the first evidences of what people thought about Jesus
– John is actually much later

Crossley:
– it may be that Paul’s Christology is high and that he just never got into any disputes

Bauckham:
– in Phillipians, Paul incorporates Jesus into the shema, the core of Jewish monotheism
– in 1 Corinthians, he does the same thing

Moderator:
– is this evidence consistent with the idea that Jesus is more like Wisdom or the Word of God

Crossley:
– in Paul’s letters, there are no conflicts about Jesus’ divinity, they appear later in John
– if Paul’s letters taught a divine Jesus, there would be conflicts in the letters
– so there is possibly an evolving Christology from very high to divine

Bauckham:
– the Word and Wisdom of God are different from exalted figures – they are separate
– the Word and Wisdom of God are intrinsic to God’s own identity
– and so Word and Wisdom are divine in the sense that they below to God’s identity

Moderator:
– is Jesus an exalted human figure or someone identified with God?
– is the identification of Jesus with divinity compatible with Jewish monotheism?
– or was this concept developed later in a pagan context where one more God would not matter?

Bauckham:
– NT scholars typically separate functional Christology and ontic Christology
– but I say that there is no such disctinction
– if Jesus does the functions of God (like ruling), then it means he is identified with God
– there is a distinction between who God is (identity) and what God is (nature)
– Jews were not as concerned with the identification of a man with the God
– Jews were disturbed by the idea that THIS shamed and crucified man would be identified with God

Moderator:
– is this high Christology too much of a sharp break with Jewish monotheism to have been early?

Crossley:
– the Phillipians passage is a strong early passage for Richard’s view
– definitely the crucifixion is a major problem for the early Jewish monotheists
– but the deification of a human being is also a strong problem in spite of what Richard says
– both Jews and Muslims will have objections to identifying Jesus with the divine

Moderator:
– How can Paul write something like this when he was such a high-ranking Jew?

Bauckham:
– Jewish monotheism could accomodate something surprising like this without surrendering anything
– John starts his gospel at the creation of the universe to say Jesus was there as “the Word”

Moderator:
– was the early church thinking of Jesus the same way that the church today does?

Crossley:
– it’s hard to say because the language today reflects a lot of development
– in the early church people were still thinking about what to make of Jesus

Moderator:
– what about in the other gospels, do they indicate a strong notion of Jesus as divine?

Crossley:
– nothing as strong as Paul’s letters and John, especiall the disputes with the Jews

Moderator:
– so did the writers of the other gospels have different views of Jesus’ divinity than Paul and John?

Crossley:
– well the same claims are not there in the text, the claims are not as grand as in Paul and John

Bauckham:
– but in Mark, the earliest gospel, Jesus forgives sins and calms storm – acting as God acts
– Jesus also asks “why do call me good, only God is good”
– the “seated at the right hand of God” and “coming on the clouds” passages

Crossley:
– I don’t think those claims are as high as John, because Moses controls nature as well
– the other actions may be more that Jesus has authority to do these things

Moderator:
– but the author of Mark writes that the disciples are catching on that Jesus was more than a man

Bauckham:
– Jews were not as concerned with the unitary nature of God, but there is only one God (being)
– there can’t really be any evolution from Jesus as a created being to Jesus as divine
– in paganism, there are lower divinities, but that is not the case in Jewish monotheism

Moderator:
– the fact that Jesus was worshiped by Jews means he was already viewed as divine

Crossley:
– that point is debatable, but can be sustained with a careful exegesis like Richard does
– there is some room there for an evolving Christology – the gap may not be as big as Richard says

Moderator:
– do you think that the worship of Jesus was the result of increasing Christology over time?

Crossley:
– it may not have been conscious, but John is the clearest statement and it is the latest gospel
– it may be that a dispute with Jews was required to spell it out even if it was present before

Moderator:
– what about idea that the early church worshiped him because they just though it was a new revelation?

Bauckham:
– the early Christians worshiped as Jews and then met separately afterward to worship Jesus
– worship is about distinguishing God from the created world
– you wouldn’t worship Jesus without some idea of what you were doing

Crossley:
– other things that set Jesus apart were the exorcisms and the vision to Paul that converted him