What is Reddit's opinion of The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

>Are you joking?

No, I assure you I am quite serious.

>Or stuff like Jesus being baptized later? That clearly been added on later which was not noticed until recently

There is actually no evidence of that either. The baptism of Jesus by St. John the baptist is considered historical by the overwhelming majority of scholars.

>The Bible definitely been changed not sure how that new to you?

We do not evidence of any theologically relevant changes in the Bible.

>Tbh I am even having doubts about like John gospel which is soo much different then the other 3

The view there that the synoptics promote a different christology then John is being abandoned by contemporary scholarship. I already linked a paper specifically on the christology of Mark in another comment but there a plenty of literature on the subject.

>Man you do realise son of god means following god right like servent of god

No, the Sonship of Jesus in the gospels refers to his divinity.

>if you read the Aramaic version

This togther with your previous point is exactly what the other commenter also remarked which makes me think that you are both getting this stuff from soem dubious sources. I have no idea what you mean by an "Aramaic version" (the original language in the New Testament is Koine Greek) and Son of God in the gospels means exactly what it says...

> Proof of Jesus’s pre-existence before the world was created, by Jesus’s own words in the Bible. [...] Luke 10:17-18

Yep, the 3 synoptics' Gospels primary method of portraying the divinity of Jesus is found in pre-existence passages. Most notably is the numberous "I have come" + purpose formula. You should pick up a copy of Simon Gathercole's book <em>The Preexistent Son</em> -- it's a great book that goes into great detail about how heavenly beings (Angels and the post-ascended Elijah in one case) come down from heaven and say "I have come" or "I have not come" and give a purpose, and how that indicates, just like in the more-direct Johannine and Pauline works, that the Son is preexistent.

Not all scholars agree that Mark does show adoptionism. Simon Gathercole (Cambridge) and Michael Whitenton (Baylor) have both released interesting books on this topic (see here and here). There's also some interesting recent papers arguing for a YHWH Christology in Mark (see this paper in the Bulletin for Biblical Research and this paper in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament). I personally find the argument rather persuasive, especially since we know that incarnation Christology precedes Mark by decades (see the above discussion on Paul).

• <em>Epistle of of Mathetes to Diognetus</em> - A 2nd century work of Christian apologetics.

• <em>Against the Heresies</em> - Written by Saint Iranaeus it is considered the first "big" Christian works at debunking false (mainly Gnostic) beliefs, spanning several books that attack a myriad of different heretical beliefs in the 2nd Century.

• <em>First Apology</em> by Saint Justin Martyr – A letter of Christian apologetics addressed from this Roman saint to Roman Emporer Antoninus Pius. It pleaded for an end to persecution of Christians based solely on their faith and explained Christian theology, prophecy in the Old Testament Scripture, and Christian practices like the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

• <em>Apologetic Treatises against those Decrying the Holy Images</em> by Saint John of Damascus. Considered by many to be the last Church Father he defended Christianitys’ use of imagery and statuary from the Byzantine courts where iconoclasm was beginning to take root, most likely inspired by the new religion of Islam. A few decades after it was written the Apologia would play a major role in the Second Council of Nicaea, which would officially condemn iconoclasm.

• <em>On the Incarnation</em> by Saint Athanasius - Considered by many to be the magnum opus of Logos theology. It was written before Arianism made it's way to the mainstream and was a largely a discourse against the Hellenists, but later would play a great role in combating Arianism.

• <em>On the Disputations</em> by Saint Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church – The magnum opus of Counter-Reformation apolgogetics. It’s still being translated in its entirety from the Latin, but the sections “On the Roman Pontiff”, “On Purgatory”, and “On the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass” are all available for independent purchase.

• The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke by New Testament scholar Gathercole - It is perhap the most stunning refutation of the claim that the three synoptic Gospels have a "low Christology" and portray Jesus as a non-divine figure in contrast to the "high Christologies" of Saint John, Saint Paul, and the author of Hebrews. Gathercole delivers a stunning rebuke to this theory, demonstrating that the synoptics portray Jesus as preexistent in their own ways unique from that of Saint John. While Gathercole is not exactly arguing that Jesus is God, he is arguing that He is preexistent, and tells readers to make of that what they will.

Not all scholars agree that the synoptic Gospels share a low Christology. Simon Gathercole (Cambridge) and Michael Whitenton (Baylor) have both released interesting books on this topic (see here and here), and there's also some interesting recent papers arguing for a YHWH Christology in Mark; see this paper in the Bulletin for Biblical Research and this paper in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament. See also this paper in New Testament Studies arguing that Jesus is YHWH in Matthew and Luke.

It's difficult to know what Jesus himself claimed; our only real indication comes from the letters of Paul and the Gospel accounts. Paul certainly regards Jesus as the Son of God (e.g. Romans 1:3, 1 Corinthians 1:9), and he elsewhere claims that his gospel is the same as that of the Jerusalem Disciples (e.g. Galatians 2:2). So we can assume from this that the early Church regarded Jesus as the Son of God; however, it's hard to know precisely when this view developed (i.e. whether it was during Jesus' life, or in the immediate aftermath of his death).

Turning to the gospels, we see a variety of perspectives. Low Synoptic Christology was the dominant position for many years, but it's pretty widely challenged as of late. To quote Bart Ehrman:

>These Gospels do indeed think of Jesus as divine. Being made the very Son of God who can heal, cast out demons, raise the dead, pronounce divine forgiveness, \[and\] receive worship together suggests that even for these Gospels Jesus was a divine being, not merely a human... Jesus is portrayed as a divine being, a God-man, in all the Gospels. But in very different ways, depending on which Gospel you read.

Simon Gathercole (Cambridge) and Michael Whitenton (Baylor) have both released interesting books on this topic (see here and here). There's also some interesting recent papers arguing for a YHWH Christology in Mark (see this paper in the Bulletin for Biblical Research and this paper in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament). I personally find the argument rather persuasive, especially since we know that incarnation Christology precedes Mark by decades See also this paper in New Testament Studies arguing that Jesus is YHWH in Matthew and Luke.

Perhaps one could draw a distinction between what the *authors* of the Synoptics thought, and what they portray Jesus as claiming. That being said, most of the indications of divine Christology that we find in the Synoptics come from the mouth of Jesus himself.

>Jesus in Mark, Matthew, and Luke doesn’t ever claim to be divine.

I would push back against this. Low Synoptic Christology was the dominant position for many years, but it's pretty widely challenged as of late. To quote Bart Ehrman:

>These Gospels do indeed think of Jesus as divine. Being made the very Son of God who can heal, cast out demons, raise the dead, pronounce divine forgiveness, [and] receive worship together suggests that even for these Gospels Jesus was a divine being, not merely a human... Jesus is portrayed as a divine being, a God-man, in all the Gospels. But in very different ways, depending on which Gospel you read.

Simon Gathercole (Cambridge) and Michael Whitenton (Baylor) have both released interesting books on this topic (see [here](https://www.amazon.com/Preexistent-Son-Recovering-Christologies-Matthew/dp/0802829015) and [here](https://readingreligion.org/books/hearing-kyriotic-sonship)). There's also some interesting recent papers arguing for a YHWH Christology in Mark (see this [paper](https://www.jstor.org/stable/26371409) in the *Bulletin for Biblical Research* and this [paper](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0142064X10380130) in the *Journal for the Study of the New Testament*). I personally find the argument rather persuasive, especially since we know that incarnation Christology precedes Mark by decades. See also this paper in New Testament Studies arguing that Jesus is YHWH in Matthew and Luke.

Put simply, John's Jesus claims to be preexistent because the author of John believed Jesus to be preexistant. He seems to share much of his Christology with Paul (see Bart Ehrman's discussion of Paul's "incredibly high Christology"), though it's more debatable how much he shares with the synoptics.

Now, there are scholars who argue for incarnationist readings of the synoptic gospels; Simon Gathercole (Cambridge) and Michael Whitenton (Baylor) have both released interesting books on this topic (see here and here), and there's also some interesting recent papers arguing for a YHWH Christology in Mark; see this paper in the Bulletin for Biblical Research and this paper in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament. See also this paper in New Testament Studies arguing that Jesus is YHWH in Matthew and Luke. That being said, this particular issue is much more controversial, so I'd recommend reading widely to get the best overview.