Here are quotations from three eminent Christian scholars – all personally believers in the Trinity – but honest enough to put the facts of the gospels before dogma. They are agreed that the gospels of Luke and Matthew know nothing of Jesus’ pre-existence, or his divine incarnation. In fact both gospels suggest the son of God was created in the womb of Mary. Arius was right it seems.
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Categories: Bible, Biblical scholarship, Christianity, God, Jesus, Scholarship
Blogging Theology 
this is great
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the implications are huge.
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Where is the Raymond Brown quote taken from?
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fawaz , you recently commented about jesus being saved from death. can i ask what your thoughts are on this post
http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1583
ben c smitch is arguing that synoptic are not in view because synoptic have jesus asking god to rescue him from crucifixion and that in ben c smiths opinion
it (hebrew 5:7) should not be
“confined to a single event,”
ben c smith who is a christian admits that
“Even though the phrase usually suggests an evasion of death…”
so is it possible that there were christians who did not believe it meant “saved OUT of death” rather “SAVED from death” ?
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Fawaz, “The Birth of the Messiah” pp. 291, 314-15.
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It’s really only a problem for those who believe that the begetting is an eternal process. I personally don’t believe in this. I find no basis in scripture for it.
Psalm 2 is against it:
7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.
The one who the LORD is speaking to in this psalm has to exist before he is begotten. Otherwise the LORD is speaking to someone in this psalm who is non-existent. Therefore he is pre-existent before he has been begotten. This proves that Dunn & Co. are wrong.
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”
The one who the LORD is speaking to in this psalm has to exist before he is begotten”
he was not eternally begetting david.
abraham had to exist before he went to sacrifice his son. the person had to exist before he received the decree.
”
herefore he is pre-existent before he has been begotten.”
which hospital did you visit recently?
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On the other hand we don’t know when the conversation takes place which is quoted in Psalm 2.
The logical answer is on the day that Jesus was begotten. If so then Jesus must have existed prior to that because otherwise he would not understand what was being said to him. There would have been no time for his mind to develop to the point that he could understand the concept of what it meant to be begotten.
In view of this I would say that Luke 1 v 35 can’t be used as proof that the Son of God has no pre-existence.
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If any christian is sincere enough, he will definitely reach to the same conclusion.
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“he was not eternally begetting david. ”
None of the NT writers apply this text to David.
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On the subject of Arius, Edward Gibbon quotes Hilary of Poitiers (“Athanasius of the West”) describing this formative period of Christianity:
“It is a thing,” says Hilary, “equally deplorable and dangerous, that there are as many creeds as opinions among men, as many doctrines as inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there are faults among us; because we make creeds arbitrarily, and explain them as arbitrarily.
The Homoousion is rejected, and received, and explained away by successive synods. The partial or total resemblance of the Father and of the Son is a subject of dispute for these unhappy times. Every year, nay, every moon, we make new creeds to describe invisible mysteries.
We repent of what we have done, we defend those who repent, we anathematise those whom we defended. We condemn either the doctrine of others in ourselves, or our own in that of others; and, reciprocally tearing one another to pieces, we have been the cause of each other’s ruin.”
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It’s not necessary to believe a creed but it is necessary to believe the bible to be a Christian.
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where does Jesus teach you must believe in the NT?
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What are the 27 books there for otherwise?
My soul is convinced after reading them that they come from the apostles, including Paul, who experienced the human Jesus, and that they are the inspired truth.
I don’t get this feeling from the Koran or Hadith.
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Unfortunately most NT scholars are of the view that the NT contains forgeries, such as 2 Peter and 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus.
Did your soul feel that too?
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I get a fuzzy feeling in MY soul that the NT is not the divinely revealed word of God. 🙂
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Ibn Issam,
That’s because you’re an anti-Christ, just like the rest of your Muslim brothers here that are part of your silly Mohammadan cult.
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I have a copy of James Dunn, “Christology in the Making”, and have just read the quote given in the post in context. Paul Williams in his quote he leaves out text and replaces it with “…”. Here is some of the text he leaves out.
“Luke’s intention is clearly to describe the creative process of begetting, not that which is begotten.” Dunn, p. 51
That is, according to Dunn, Luke is describing the process of Jesus birth, not whether or not Jesus is pre-existent or non-pre-existent. That is, the pre-existence or non-pre-existence of Jesus is not the subject of the virgin birth. How Paul has edited the quote to make it seem otherwise.
I have not checked the other quotes Paul Williams uses but encourage people to do so before they accept them.
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I came across the quotes as they are above on a Christian unitarian site. It is always a good idea to check them out I agree.
But Luke and Matthew do not present Jesus as pre-existing or an incarnate deity. That only happens in the last gospel, John.
You have not tackled that problem Samuel.
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Paul Williams being a crafty, disingenuous creep is nothing new.
Well spotted and good job exposing him.
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Here is the session I did to refute Paul Williams’ appeal to critical NT scholars who argue that Matthew and Luke deny the prehuman existence of Jesus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzlkWvhHx30
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