Did Jesus Claim Deity? James White vs Shabir Ally in Toronto 2012

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Ignatius and the Early Christian Witness to Christ's Deity

It is indeed my pleasure to be with you this evening. It is a tremendous group we have gathered here and I hope that we all recognize this is an incredibly important subject. It is my honor to once again debate Shabir Ali.

As mentioned, this is the fifth time that we have engaged one another and I believe that you will be in for a treat this evening because we have great respect for one another and I think it's because we have great respect for the subject matter that we are addressing.

And I hope that you likewise will be able to focus upon what's truly important this evening. But we have very little time, unfortunately. I'd like to begin with a quotation from Ignatius, who was the Bishop of Antioch, writing around A .D. 107.

He said, there is one physician of flesh and of spirit, generate and ingenerate, God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from God, first passable and then impassable, Jesus Christ our Lord.

He likewise said in writing to the church at Ephesus, by the will of the Father and of Jesus Christ, our God, later he said, for our God, Jesus the Christ, and he wrote to Polycarp, he said, await the one who is above every season, the eternal, the invisible, the one for our sake, who for our sake became visible, the untouched, the impassable, who for our sake suffered, who endured in every way for our sake.

Now this is the first generation after the Apostles. Clearly we have here testimony of a belief in the deity of Jesus Christ. It wasn't something that came about with the Council of Nicaea in 325. There's tremendous evidence that the early Christians believed in the full deity of Christ as soon as the Apostles had passed from the scene.

Philippians 2 and the Pre-Existence of Christ

How could that have happened? Where did they get this idea? Well, I think if we turn to the New Testament we find out. The Apostle Paul, when he wrote to the church at Philippi, quoted from an early hymn of the church, probably this material precedes Paul's own conversion to Christianity.

It comes from the very earliest years of the Christian faith. And he said these words, right in the Philippians he said, you must have the same mindset among yourselves that was in Christ Jesus. And here's the part of the hymn, who although he eternally existed in the very form of God, did not consider that equality he had with God the Father something to be held on to at all costs.

But instead he made himself nothing by taking on the very form of a slave by being made in human likeness. And having entered into human existence, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death one dies on a cross.

Because of this God the Father exalted him to the highest place and bestowed on him the name which is above every name. So at the mention of the exalted name of Jesus, everyone who is in heaven and on earth and under the earth bows the knee and every tongue confesses Jesus Christ is Lord, all to the glory of God the Father.

Now this, if this precedes Paul's own entrance into the Christian faith, then we are going into the very earliest years. This again does not come after the Council of Nicaea. This is something that comes from the very time period when the apostles, the Lord Jesus Christ themselves, are still alive.

Where could that kind of belief have come from? That is the question we must ask this evening. Because the question is, did Jesus claim deity? And I submit to you that the only way you could have this early testimony, this early witness to the deity of Christ, is because Jesus himself is the source of this belief.

Jesus Forgives Sins and Claims Divine Authority in Mark 2

In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 2, we read,. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven. But some of the scribes are sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, Why does this man speak that way?

He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? Immediately Jesus, aware in his spirit that they are reasoning that way within themselves, said to them, Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts?

Which is easier to say to the paralytic, Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Get up and pick up your pallet and walk? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he then said to the paralytic, I say to you, Get up, pick up your pallet and go home.

Do you hear Jesus' point here at the very beginning of the Gospel of Mark? Jesus claims authority that is God's alone. And in the question, he asks them, Why are you reasoning like this? Which is easier, to say, Your sins are forgiven, that's something only God can do, or get up and pick up your pallet and walk, which would require the healing power of the Spirit of God?

They both mean that I am operating under the very power of God. Why would you have a problem with this? Because they didn't know who he was. And many of Jesus' questions, when he said to the rich, young ruler, Why do you call me good?

That wasn't a denial of his goodness. That was making sure the young man knew who he was dealing with. This use, the term, Son of Man. Who is the Son of Man? Now, the Son of Man can be used generically of just a human being.

But the Son of Man is a very special person. All through the Gospel of Mark, Jesus identifies himself with this language. And finally, in the 14th chapter, when Jesus is on trial, and he's standing before the Sanhedrin, and they're trying to, they can't even come up with witnesses that can come up with a meaningful argument against him.

Here we read these words. Again, the high priest was questioning him and saying to him, Are you the Christ? Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One? And Jesus said, I am. Let me stop right there, just to our Muslim friends.

Jesus identified himself as the Son of the Blessed One. God doesn't have that kind of son by the tongue. I can assure you of that. Son of the Blessed One, that was well known who that was in Jewish theology.

And Jesus said, I am. And you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. I put it into a different color. You can't really see it on the screen there, but I put it into a different color because those are quotations from the Old Testament.

I'll look at them in just a moment. Now notice the result. Tearing his clothes, the high priest said, What further need do we have of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy. How does it seem to you? And they all condemned him to be deserving of death.

What did Jesus say? If Son of Man is just simply, well, this just means I'm a human being. If that's what it means, then why did they understand this is blasphemy? Because of the text that Jesus had just quoted of himself.

He quoted from Psalm 110 there, Yahweh says to my Adonai, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. This exalted being, Jesus was identifying as himself in the same way that he quotes from Daniel chapter seven and Daniel seven, it says, I saw in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven, there came on like a son of man and he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him.

And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people's nations and languages should serve him. And I put the Greek term there so you can see that that's Latruo. That's the highest form of religious service and worship is given to the son of man.

Prophetically, in the book of Daniel, Jesus applies these words to himself at his own trial, saying, I am the son of the blessed one. And the Jews know exactly what it is that he is claiming for himself.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom, one that shall not be destroyed. This is Jesus's own teaching about himself in the gospel of Mark, but it's not just Mark here in Matthew chapter 11.

We read Jesus saying all things have been handed over to me by my father and no one knows the son except the father and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him.

Now, once again, we have to recognize the the dialogue that we're in here. I know what the third ayah of Surah Tal Iqlas says, but here is Jesus saying, I am the son and I am uniquely the son and as the son, no one knows me except the father.

This is not a mere Rasul speaking, my friends. No one knows the son except the father and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him. May I suggest that those words are directly contradictory to Surah 5, verse 117, where Jesus says, you know the secret, I don't know.

Here, Jesus, and these words were written within a matter of decades after Jesus's crucifixion burial and resurrection. And he says, no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him.

Let me tell you something, my friends, my sincerest prayer for everyone in this place this evening is that the son would reveal himself and reveal the father to us this evening. That truly is my desire in our being here this evening.

Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven on that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?

And then I will declare them. I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Now these words are very important to Christians because there are many people running around saying, Lord, Lord, but they do not act in accordance with the father's will.

And Jesus says they will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. And not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, to Jesus will enter into the kingdom of heaven. But I hope you hear what Jesus said. You must call him Lord to enter the kingdom of heaven.

That's what his words say. Just saying Lord doesn't get you in. But everyone who enters in will say, Lord. And notice what Jesus says to those he casts away. I never knew you. The entrance to the kingdom of heaven, my friends, according to the Jesus Christ of history, was dependent upon your knowledge of him and his reciprocal knowledge of you.

You can know a lot about Jesus, but if you don't know Jesus, you don't have eternal life. Jesus goes on to say, now he said to them, these are my words. This is from the Gospel of Luke, which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

This is after Jesus's resurrection. He's meeting with the disciples. He says, I've told you everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, not by teaching.

This was a supernatural thing. Jesus has the ability to open the human mind to even understand the very words of God. Whose function is that? Is this not part of where the disciples got this idea? And he said to them, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.

Jesus was the one who began the belief in his own deity and his own fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Jesus is the source of these things. And Jesus came up to them and spoke to them right before his ascension, saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven on earth.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Here is one who is not just the Jewish messiah. All authority has been given to him. I submit to you that no mere rasool can be given all authority in heaven and on earth. This is the exalted position Jesus claimed for himself in Matthew, in Mark, in Luke.

You'll notice I haven't even quoted the Gospel of John. But this leads us to the Muslim dilemma. The author of the Quran did not have firsthand knowledge of the content of the Jewish scriptures, the Tanakh, or the Christian scriptures, the Injil.

They're never quoted. You don't have the kind of deep knowledge of the Old Testament scriptures that the New Testament writers show in their quotation thereof. Yet the Quran says two conflicting things.

The Quran clearly denies the central teaching of the Bible regarding God's self-revelation as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And in strong and direct terms, it denies the deity of Jesus, the Messiah. We don't have time this evening to look at Surah 4 and Surah 5, but it's right there.

It's very, very clear what is said. Yet the Quran also claims the Torah and Injil were sent down and that the Torah and Injil contain life and guidance, and we are to judge by what the Gospel contains.

We read in Surah 5, 44 through 47, we reveal the Torah wherein there was a guidance and light by which the prophets who surrendered to Allah judged the Jews, and the men of Allah and the rabbis judged by such of Allah's book as they were bidden to observe and be its witnesses.

So fear not men, but fear me, and sell not my signs for a miserable price. Whoever judges not by that which Allah has sent down, such are the disbelievers. And we are ordained for them therein a life for a life, an eye for an eye, and a nose for a nose, and an ear for an ear, and a tooth for a tooth, and wombs for retaliation.

That's the lex talionis from the book of Leviticus. But if anyone remits the retaliation in charity, it is an act of atonement for himself. And whoever judges not by what Allah had revealed, such are the unjust.

And in their footsteps, so you've got Allah sending down the Torah to Moses, in which is light and guidance. In their footsteps, we send Jesus, son of Mary, confirming that which was revealed before him.

And we bestowed on him the gospel, wherein it is guidance and light. In the gospel is guidance and light, confirming that which was revealed before it in the Torah. So you see the connection that's being drawn here.

The Torah is sent down from God, guidance and light. Now Jesus is sent down. He's given the angel. There's guidance and light in it as well. And it confirms that which was revealed before it in the Torah, a guidance and an admonition to the God fearing.

Let the people of the gospel judge by that which Allah had revealed therein. Whoever judges not by that which Allah has revealed, such are the corrupt. And to you, here's the last step. Now to Muhammad, to you, we have set down the book, the Quran with the truth, confirming whatever books were before it and a witness over them.

So judge between them by what that which Allah has sent down and follow not their passions away from the truth, which has come to you for each of you have appointed. We have appointed a divine law and a traced out way.

And I want to look again at I have 47. Let the people of the gospel judge by that which Allah had revealed therein. I looked at the root for a judge there. I looked at all the uses in the Quran just today.

It means to judge, not to not to correct, not to examine and find different levels of tradition and things like that. It means to judge by what? By what Allah had revealed therein. What's the fihi there?

It's the gospel. So what do these words have to mean for them to have any meaning at all to the people to whom they were spoken? They had to possess the gospel. They had to have the ability to judge and hence not be unbelievers.

Now, why is this important? If the people of the gospel were to judge by what Allah had revealed therein, then of necessity, the gospel had to exist in Muhammad's day. Now, we know what that gospel looked like as we possess entire copies of the Bible that were written centuries before Muhammad was born.

We know exactly what it taught, and we know that the Quran does not represent what it taught. Therefore, if the Quran is correct that the gospel existed in the days of Muhammad and the gospel reveals throughout its text, the deity of Christ at every level, no matter how you how you take it apart.

And I know that my friend Shabir loves the liberals out there that engage in redaction criticism, and they cut stuff apart. And we'll find out if he's become consistent. And now he started to cut apart the Quran and look at the different levels of it and so on and so forth.

We'll find that out tonight. But it doesn't matter what level of tradition you're at. The deity of Christ is testified throughout everything in the gospel. And so if the Quran is correct, the gospel exists in the days of Muhammad and the gospel reveals throughout its text, the deity of Christ, which the Quran denies, then the Quran is in contradiction with itself.

Because if I judge by the gospel, then I have to reject the message that denies what the gospel teaches. But if the Muslim asserts the corruption of the gospel prior to the giving of the Quran, then Surah 547 become makes no sense as the people of the gospel could not judge.

And by the way, that's an imperative form of the verb there judged by what Allah has contained, has revealed therein. Hence, the Quran would be nonsensical. So which one is it? Does it contradict itself?

Or was there no gospel which by which they could even fulfill the commandment in the first place? Two minutes. Muslims have since the end of the 19th century been using double standards in denying the biblical witness to the deity of Christ.

That is, they will utilize one form of scholarship, read action, criticism, whatever it might be in taking apart the biblical witness. But they won't do the same thing for the Quran. Now, folks, there are scholars out there that are consistent on this point, and they are not our friends.

They're not friends with Christians here, not friends with Muslims here. But it is time. It is time, my friends, for Muslims to begin using just balances, equal weights, as Surah 55, nine commands you, and to abandon double standards in this matter.

The answer to our question this evening is simple. Every credible source historically and every theological source revelationally gives the consistent answer to the question, did Jesus claim deity as yes?

Only by fragmenting the witness of the Bible can one avoid its testimony found in the words of Thomas himself, where in encountering the Lord Jesus Christ after his resurrection, Thomas answered and said to him, my Lord and my God.

That, my friends, is the confession of the earliest Christians, not because Paul came along and perverted the message, not because the original followers of Jesus were too weak to maintain his teaching, but because they were following his message and they knew that God had invaded time.

Historical Method, Faith, and the Muslim Approach to Jesus

The word had become flesh. Did Jesus claim deity? Yes, my friends, he did. It's throughout the New Testament. Thank you very much. I listened carefully to Dr. White, and it was a pleasure listening to him again.

I want to begin, as always, by praising our creator and fashioner, asking him to send peace and blessings upon all of his prophets, his messengers, and upon all of the righteous people of all time, including all of the men and women who are here in this hall tonight, all of your families.

And may God bless all of you, heal all of the people who are sick, especially the founder of this foundation. Now, onto our topic, let's begin. First, I enter this discussion not as an academic scholar, that I might do if I were presenting something in a university setting.

I am a theologian of the Muslim faith, and there's no secret about that. This is my particular bias. This is where I come from. And it is important that we recognize what biases we have so that at least we can take that as a stepping stone for overcoming whatever biases we do have.

Second, if I'm not approaching this as an academic scholar or as a historian, in what sense would I approach this? I am approaching it as a theologian, but at the same time, I want to be aware of whatever historical studies have been done regarding Jesus, so that if there is a firm conclusion from history, I should not believe something contrary by faith.

I believe that faith should rest on and it should build upon and rise above things like historical evidence and empirical studies. In other words, what people might refer to as facts, we should not say that I believe something when it is contrary to fact.

However, facts only take us to such an extent, and then faith takes over. So I believe that faith can continue where facts stop. Now, of course, there are historians who try to understand the life and teachings of Jesus.

And today's field of historical studies regarding Jesus largely is done without reference to God, without reference to the Muslim or Christian idea that Jesus is a man who has been somehow commissioned by God to preach a message.

For historians, this is out of the question. They examine the things that they could feel, see, and touch, rather than things that people believe, either intrinsically or as a matter of faith. John Meyer, in his book, The Marginal Jew, says that his work comes out of the thinking of what would happen if we put together in the same room a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, and so on, and have them hammer out what can we know about.

He wants to arrive at some neutral ground. So we should understand what historians arrive at from this kind of study, starting from a neutral ground, and how that affects the faiths of either Muslims or Christians.

One of the things I'll admit to you right away is that some of the things that historians now say about Jesus, neither Muslims nor Christians will accept as a matter of faith. Muslims and Christians will say that as a matter of faith, we have some other knowledge that is not available to the historians.

We believe that God has revealed a message to us, and that message tells us that Jesus is a man approved by God. And so we take a different approach than what the historians would take. Point, in fact, is that many historians today believe that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet.

Not only that, he predicted the apocalypse, the end of the world, as we know it, to occur within the lifetimes of his first listeners. Now, this obviously did not happen. The apocalypse did not arrive, and people are still predicting when the apocalypse will occur.

So as a Muslim, how do I approach this piece of historical conclusion? I would say that for some reason, the historians are mistaken. It would seem to me as a Muslim that someone else was responsible for putting into circulation those sayings of Jesus which would indicate that the apocalypse will occur within the lifetime of his own disciples.

So that failed prediction, from my point of view as a Muslim, cannot come from the lips of Jesus. It must have come from someone else. So I differentiate between the historical conclusions and the conclusions that I have from faith.

But does this mean then that by rejecting this historical conclusion, I am, in a way, not being faithful to the facts? Well, history is such that many of these conclusions are based on subjective evaluations of the material at hand.

Historians use certain criteria by which they comb through the gospel material and they look at historical events, and they ask, what could have happened? What must have happened? What is most probably the event that has occurred?

And so they form their conclusions that way. Now, if from a faith perspective, I have a more firm conclusion, a firmer conclusion than what I can see from the historical evidence, naturally, I go with the firm conclusion of faith.

With that caveat in mind, then, how do we approach the subject of the Gospels and their recorded sayings of Jesus, on whom be peace? We will find in the Gospels that there are sayings of Jesus which show that he is very much a human being, he has limitations, and Muslims would naturally seize upon those sayings and say, look, that is where it shows that Jesus is a man, a prophet of God, just as Muslims believe.

At the same time, in the Gospels, there are statements which do not accord with Muslim belief. They place Jesus on a higher level than a human being and than a prophet. Some sayings, in particular in the Gospel according to John, would represent Jesus as literally the Son of God, not physically, of course, but literally the Son of God, since the Bible presents God as a spirit being, not a physical being.

And Muslims, obviously, will not accept this regarding Jesus. So then, how do we come to the Gospel with a clear and acute mind, wanting to believe what we believe, and at the same time, not ignoring the facts of history?

In particular, these historical records, the biographies of Jesus. There are certain conclusions which, though subjective in some ways, nevertheless are built on certain hard pieces of evidence. And such conclusions, such hard pieces of evidence are so clear in their implications that, although conservative Christians have resisted those pieces of evidence and continue to do so, more and more conservative scholars are now admitting that this is what the evidence is.

I'd like to share with you some of what has been discovered regarding the Gospels, so that we can understand how to approach the Gospels and how to understand why the Gospels retain both sayings of Jesus, which would indicate his limitations, and also sayings which would indicate that he is somehow divine.

Let me then go to my slides. As the Gospels now appear in the Bible, this is the order. Starting from your left to your right, Matthew first, Mark, Luke, and then John. However, scholars generally today believe that Mark was the first of the four Gospels to be written.

And hence, this would be roughly the order, Mark first, Matthew and Luke somewhere in between, and finally, John. One of the scholars who has contributed to this conclusion, or rather has accepted the conclusion, and is undoubtedly a conservative scholar.

Let me check with Jane. Is Richard Balcombe a conservative scholar? Somewhere there. Is F .F. Bruce a conservative scholar? Oh, by the way, since he is a conservative scholar, I'd like to present to you New Testament History by F .F. Bruce.

Now, both Richard Balcombe and F .F. Bruce hold to the idea that Mark was first and John last. Now, this is a very important conclusion, and we'll see where it heads. The dating I've given here for Mark's Gospel is 65 to 75, and that corresponds to the specific dating that has been given by Richard Balcombe.

Well, I said specific, but obviously it is a range because there is a certain amount of subjectivity involved in trying to determine the precise dates. According to F .F. Bruce, a few years earlier than this, because he said the middle of the 60s, and so it could be somewhere close to that, but not to the 75 number.

John's Gospel in the last decade of the first century, so anywhere from 90 to 100, and this seems to be what F .F. Bruce says repeatedly that John wrote towards the close of the first century. Now, what else do these scholars tell us?

So Matthew and Luke are somewhere in between, but it is important to notice also that the scholars believe that Mark was a source used by Matthew and Luke in the composition of their own Gospels. Now, that's natural.

If somebody has written a Gospel, you're going to write another one. Why start from scratch? You use the existing document, and you write it according to the way you know the facts to be, or to bring out the message you would like to bring out.

So Matthew and Luke did this, but as noted by F .F. Bruce, Matthew and Luke sometimes made improvements to Mark's Gospel. Now, he didn't spell out what all of the improvements are, but the improvements are, I believe, very important, and we should take cognizance of what they are.

For example, there are improvements which show that in Mark's Gospel, somebody addressed Jesus as Rabbi, such as in Mark chapter 9, verse 5. But then in Matthew's Gospel, in the same incident, you can compare them side by side.

You go from Mark to Matthew, the same incident, the person referred to Jesus as Lord. So in Mark 9 .5, Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. In Matthew 17 .4, Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here.

So in the one Gospel, he's called Rabbi, the earlier one, and the later Gospel, he's called Lord. So there is a significant improvement here from a Christian point of view. At second, there are improvements in which we find in the later Gospel that Jesus describes himself as Lord.

For example, in Mark chapter 13, verse 35, therefore, keep awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come. Compare that with Matthew chapter 24, verse 42. Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

When I mentioned this in Seattle a few years ago, James took issue regarding this. Actually, I haven't mentioned it in Seattle. I mentioned it elsewhere, then James took issue with it during our Seattle debate.

And following that, I wrote a rejoinder, reaffirming that this difference actually does exist. Third, there are improvements in which the later Gospel calls Jesus the Son of God. For example, Mark chapter 8, verse 29, Peter answered him, you are the Messiah.

But compare that with Matthew chapter 16, verse 16. Simon Peter answered, you are the Messiah, son of the living God. So the later Gospel is inserted here, son of the living God, in Peter's speech, as is admitted by many scholars who have worked on this.

Four, there are improvements in which the later Gospel suddenly calls God Father, or has Jesus call God Father. Mark chapter 3, verse 31, whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.

Matthew chapter 12, verse 46 improves that by saying that Jesus said, for whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. So it was God in the earlier Gospel, was Father in the later Gospel.

Five, there are improvements so as to have people pray to Jesus. For example, when a storm broke out, Jesus was asleep in the stern, and the disciples came up to Jesus and awoke him. According to Mark's Gospel, Mark chapter 4, verse 38, and they said to him, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?

What do they call Jesus? Teacher. Again, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? In Matthew chapter 8, verse 25, same incident, they approached Jesus and they said, Lord, save us, we are perishing.

What did they call him this time? Lord. It's the same incident, just the later Gospel, the situation has been changed. The wording has been changed. Then there are improvements to reduce Jesus's emphasis on one God.

In Mark chapter 12, verse 29, Jesus was asked, what is the first and the greatest commandment? And this is what he said. The first is, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

So, he repeated basically what is known as the Shema Israel, which pious Jews will repeat twice a day, reminding themselves that there is only one God, Yahweh, to use the name that James already used here tonight, or Jehovah, to use another spelling of the same name.

Whether that is right or not, that's a different question, but it's popular. Some say Jehovah, some say Yahweh. According to Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4, hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one.

The name there that is translated as the Lord is Yahweh or Jehovah. So, it really sounds in the New Jerusalem Bible, hear, O Israel, Yahweh your Lord is one Yahweh. Jehovah your Lord is one Jehovah. In fact, in Deuteronomy, it also says, besides him, there is no other.

Jesus is repeating the same as the first commandment in Mark's gospel. But then the same story is told in Matthew's gospel. What has happened to the first commandment? It's just not mentioned. In Matthew chapter 22, verse 37 and 38, Jesus just simply said the part about loving your Lord with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind.

And he said, this is the greatest and the first commandment. But that's not true. That is not the first commandment. The first commandment is, as it was mentioned in Mark, the earlier of these two gospels.

Finally, our last but one, there are improvements to reduce the distinction which Jesus made between himself and God. For example, in Mark 10, 18, a man had come up to Jesus and called him good teacher.

And Jesus then replied, why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. But in Matthew 19, 17, the same incident is there. And the man approached Jesus and called him and asked him, what must I, what good deed must I do?

I have to start over. See, in Mark's gospel, the man comes up to Jesus and says, good teacher. But in Matthew's gospel, the man comes up to Jesus and says, what teacher, what good teacher. So whereas in Mark's gospel, he calls Jesus good.

So then Jesus replies, why do you call me good? In Matthew's gospel, he only asks about what is good. And so Jesus says, why do you ask me about what is good? So Jesus does not repudiate the title in Matthew's gospel.

According to James Dunn, Matthew here has modified not only the response, but in order to get the modified response, he also modified the man's question. Finally, there are improvements to cover the human limitations of Jesus.

For example, in Mark's gospel, chapter 11, verses 12 to 14, Jesus approached a fig tree, thinking that he would find fruit on it. But when he did not find any fruit on it, he cursed the fig tree. Why didn't he find any fruit on it?