Squirley:
One of the things I don't get is when people look for some other reason for Jews to have a problem with Christians other than the belief in Jesus as God.
I would say that the problem that Jews have with Christianity in the last 15 centuries has less to do with what Christians believe about Jesus than the peripheral history that developed around Jesus.
The Gospels indicate that Jesus avoided being direct on this in a number of instances, but did equate Himself with God, as I AM, as one able to forgive sins, one who received worship, etc.
There are other interpretations of the “I am” references.
John 8:58: Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." Jesus is answering the question about being under 50 and yet knowing Abraham. When Jesus used the phrase he may not have been using it as a name or title, but was only explaining his pre-human existence. That is in keeping with John opening with Jesus pre-existing even creation.
Christians then link the verse to Exodus 3:14 to try to justify that Jesus is God because God used the “I Am that I Am” as his name to Moses.
Exod 3:14
Va’yomer od Elohim el-moshe EYEH ASHER EYEH And G-d said unto Moses: 'I AM THAT I AM'; and He said: 'Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: I AM hath sent me unto youBut of course the question is did John employ the formula that he already had open on the page of his Septuagint when he wrote his Gospel so that people would make the connection that Jesus was God, or did Jesus actually say it, and the school of John is recording it? Obviously, that will be a faith based answer that cannot be known in any historical sense.
John uses the phrase,
ego’ eimi of the Septuagint’s Exodus 3:
ego' eimi' ho Ohn', which translates "I am the Being". Or did he intend the verb
eimi to mean the historical present because Jesus was talking about himself in relation to Abraham's past?
(The Septuagint 3:14 then goes on to say "tell them that 'I am' has sent you" or, in the Greek, "
ho on has sent you". John does not use the
ho on, so either John left it out or Jesus did not say it. He would have said the whole phrase if he meant he was God, “the being.”)
…That is forgotten by people who at the same time want to spare the pharisees' reputation and revise Christianity so that Jesus didn't think He was God or his earliest followers didn't see Him as God. That's backwards: they decide Jesus didn't claim to be God, etc., that there were no miracles or resurrection, therefore what why would a Jew follow Him and what would they think about Him, what would distinguish them from later Christians, etc.
Just as an aside, there is no need to spare the reputation of the Pharisees. I correctly credit their legacy for preserving Judaism in an ever changing world post 70. Without that legacy, Judaism would not have survived into the modern era. Their legacy of ongoing adaptive legislation is still with us.
As for “That’s backwards…they decide Jesus didn’t claim to be God,” an equally good case could be made that a faith community believing Jesus is God would read back into every reference that is indeed “indirect.”
Their conclusions determine their methodology which is intended to reinforce the conclusions, but all that results is a mess where everyone projects what they want onto 'Jesus' as the revolutionary, the cynic sage, the liberal Pharisee, the magician, etc.
Or that he is God.
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