“Mark and Bev Tindall” wrote in message .

The problem is in the concept of God. God is infinite. Jesus is finite. To call Jesus God is to limit God to a finite form.

My question:

Mark: how did John/the redactor allow Thomas’ confession ‘My Lord > and my God’ to pass without Jesus’ correcting him?

Mark’s response:

John’s gospel has very few (if any) words from the historical Jesus. This verse is indicative of a later interpretation of Jesus as God which was not evident in the first Pauline letters nor in the first gospel – Mark.

My rejoinder:

Note to the less-literate in terms of contemporary NT studies: the Jesus Seminar ‘findings’ are not received as universally/categorically as Mark seems to suggest.

I’ve just been away at a conference with one of Australia’s NT scholars, who is also quite liberal theologically, but who is skeptical of the basic presuppositions and methodologies (plural) of Jesus Seminar scholars…

I’m not well-enough read in this area (certainly not as well-read as Mark: I’ve read a couple of books, including one of John Dominic Crossan’s, and few by Tom Wright, the most-quoted conservative scholar on these matters these days, and about 20 major articles – see our website) and so can’t buy into any debate on the issue. I’m simply flagging a warning that even liberal NT scholars are not as categorical as Mark. Sometime when I get time I’ll try to do a review of the range of opinions here: quite interesting.

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Shalom!

Rowland Croucher

April 24, 2004.