The problem with Biblical verses that people claim proves "Christ’s divinity"
The Gospel of John
The reason why I have singled out the Gospel of John is because John is often the main source cited by Christians as proving Christ's divinity. The Gospel of John is easily distinguished from the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke), which share a considerable amount of text. That fact has been recognized since the early church itself.
John omits about 90% of the material in the Synoptic gospels and was chronologically written last. The Synoptic describe much more of Jesus' life, miracles, and exorcisms. By contrast, the material unique to John are notable, especially in their effect on modern Christianity.
According to Trinitarianism, of the four gospels, John presents the highest Christology, implicitly declaring Jesus (peace be upon him) to be God.
I’m not claiming to be an absolute scholar of the New Testament but according to The Jesus Seminar, a research team of about 135 New Testament scholars founded in 1985, there is little historical value in John.
Some of the research conducted by the Jesus Seminar concluded that nearly every Johannine saying of Jesus should be considered non historical. So you see, if the book of John is faulty, than clearly you can see how this would affect Christianity’s claim of Jesus’ divinity since it's the main source of Christology.
What's often said about John's gospel is you can place a beginning of outright hostility between [members of the early Jesus movement] and mainstream Judaism. Nonetheless, by time John's account was being written, the followers of Jesus, the early Christians, and the mainstream religion of the Jews are beginning to head off a separate track.
For more on
the Gospel of John:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wi
http://www.islam-guide.com
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/john.html
For more information on The Jesus Seminar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Seminar
http://www.westarinstitute.org/
What about the other verses in the Bible supporting the divinity of Jesus?
The Muslim Position
by Dr. Gary Miller, Mathematician and Logician
A few centuries ago, European Philosophers commonly felt that a conjecture was proven if it could be shown to be equivalent to an assertion made by Aristotle. Unfortunately, such an approach stopped short of challenging Aristotle and discovering truth. Similarly, testing the Trinitarian case on what people have said about Jesus stops short of establishing the integrity of the authorities and the truth of the matter.
Our purpose here is no more than the illustration that belief in the Trinity can only be based on Church authority. Many Christians admit that this is the case while others insist that the teaching was elaborated by Jesus himself. "Let them produce their proof," is the repeated admonition of the Quran, that is, "provide the documentation that Jesus himself claimed unqualified deity."
"Or have they taken for worship (other) gods besides him? Say, "Bring your convincing proof: this is the Message of those with me and the Message of those before me." But most of them know not the Truth, and so turn away."– Qur’an English Translation [21:24]
Unless this evidence can be produced, authorities are subject to challenge. Then the Christian may not evade the Muslim's questions concerning understanding. The Christian will have no justification for maintaining an illogical position, unless he is content to rely on the opinions of men. If he will probe no deeper than this, the Christian-Muslim dialogue is finished.
For Christians, the only documents accepted as reporting the words of Jesus are the accounts given in the Bible. We leave the Muslim attitude toward the Bible for part II of this essay and find our motivation now in the Quranic verse:
"Say: "O People of the Book! ye have no ground to stand upon unless ye stand fast by the Law, the Gospel, and all the revelation that has come to you from your Lord." It is the revelation that cometh to thee from thy Lord, that increaseth in most of them their obstinate rebellion and blasphemy. But sorrow thou not over (these) people without Faith." – Qur’an English Translation [5:68]
Christians are advised to support their claims by citing their books. Thus Muslims believe that no saying of Jesus can be produced which shows him grasping at equality with God. The primary issue is not whether Jesus is God. The first question is whether he said that he was equal to God.
Methodology
The Bible record of sayings credited to Jesus is quite meager. After allowance for duplication in the four gospel accounts, these sayings could be printed in two columns of a newspaper. None of this handful of texts is an explicit claim of deity. All quotations are implicit, that is, they require interpretation. We are told what Jesus said and then told what he meant. So our methodology takes an obvious form.
It is not our intention or obligation to reinterpret the Bible. We are satisfied to merely verify that Christian interpretations are insufficient, ambiguous, or impossible.
We mean to argue:
1) that where the meaning of a quotation is clear, it is still insufficient to prove that Jesus claimed equality with God;
2) that other quotations cited are open to various interpretation, ambiguous;
3) and that still other quotations have been given interpretations that are impossible.
This means the evidence is either inadequate, inconclusive, or unacceptable, respectively.
1) Insufficient Evidence
The virgin birth of Jesus and the miracles he demonstrated are cited by some as proof of his divinity. The insufficiency of the premise is obvious. We need only read the Biblical account of Adam's creation, without father or mother, and the accounts of miracles associated with the Prophet Elisha (Genesis and 2 Kings chapters 4,5,6). In the case of these two men, no Christian asserts their divinity, yet each has a qualification in common with Jesus.
Some maintain that Jesus was God because the Hebrew Scriptures predicted his coming. The inadequacy here is only slightly less apparent. The ancient Hebrew Scriptures are also cited as predicting the role of John the Baptist (Malachi chapter 4). These three arguments are mentioned to show that the ready claims of Christian betray a selective or forgetful recall of scripture. They know the fact of virgin birth as well as they know the account of Adam's origins, yet they interpret the first and overlook the second.
Now to pursue our case indirectly. Does the Bible quote Jesus as claiming equality with God? Bible texts are produced to show that Jesus used the terms "son of man", "son of God", "Messiah", and "savior". But each of these terms is applied to other individuals in the Bible. Ezekiel was addressed as "son of man" (Ezekiel chapter 3). Jesus himself speaks of the peacemakers as "sons of God" (Matthew 5:9).
Cyrus the Persian is called "messiah" at Isaiah 45:1. The duplicity of translators is manifested here, for they inevitably render only the meaning of the word "Messiah" which is "anointed". Where other Bible verses seem to refer to Jesus, they prefer to transliterate "Messiah" or the Greek equivalent "Christ". In this way they hope to give the impression that there is only one Messiah. As for "savior", the word is applied to other than Jesus (2 Kings 13:5).
Christians choose to cite the forty-third chapter of Isaiah as proof that there is only one savior. Again, translators have tried to obscure the fact that God is the only savior in the same ultimate sense that He is our only nourisher and protector, though men also have these assigned tasks. By over specifying this pronouncement in Isaiah they hope to have us believe that God equals savior and Jesus equals savior therefore Jesus equals God.
The conspiracy of modern translation is easily demonstrated. The King James Bible of 1611 is everywhere available. Compare it to a more recent translation, say the New American Bible of this century. In the earlier version we find 2 Kings 13:5 contains the word "savior", but in the newer version the synonymous word "deliverer" has been substituted. In fact, "saviors", the plural, will be found at Obadiah 21 and Nehemiah 9:27.
Here again, by substituting a different word, the connotation of divinity tied to the word "savior" has been guarded in modern versions by less than honest translation. Once more we have exhibited the insufficient warrant of arguments offered: Those terms said to connote divinity are used of individuals other than Jesus.
There is a quotation that should be mentioned here also. At John 8:58 it is reported that Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I am". Even if Jesus meant to claim by these words that he was alive before Abraham was, is this sufficient ground to say that he was divine? If Jesus lived in heaven then came to earth it might mean something remarkable, but it would not be enough to establish him as God incarnate.
Additionally, it should be noted that these words are open to other interpretation. Christians do not imagine that the Prophet Jeremiah had a pre-human existence and so they find a suitable way of interpreting the words of Jeremiah 1:5 which portray such a situation, if taken literally, Why not apply a similar understanding in the case of John 8:58?
2) Ambiguous Evidence
Some scholars have insisted that in this statement of Jesus just discussed, he appropriated for himself a divine title. In Exodus chapter 3, it is reported that God told Moses "I am what I am," as most English Bibles translate the Hebrew text. At John 8:58 Jesus says, "before Abraham was, I am," as most English Bibles translate the Greek text. But here is the key to another deception. The original of the first text is in Hebrew while the original of the second is in Greek. All but a few of Jesus' words were recorded in Greek.
For two hundred years before the time of Jesus the Jews used a Greek translation of their Hebrew scriptures, the Septuagint. This work translated the key phrase "I am" of Exodus as HO ON. However, the words of Jesus, "I am", have been given to us in Greek as EGO EIMI. If the gospel writer of John 8:58 wanted to tell his Greek-speaking audience that Jesus had imitated God he would have used the familiar words of the Septuagint, otherwise the point would be lost. The evidence of John 8:58 is far from conclusive.
There is another Greek word to consider which betrays suppression or neglect of evidence. At John 10:30 Jesus is quoted as saying "I and the Father are one." The Greek word translated "one" is HEN. Certain scholars have insisted that the only possible understanding of this word is "one in essence or nature". One need not be a Greek scholar to refute this unjustified claim. A counter example is sufficient. The same word is used by Jesus in John 17:11,21,22,23, as he includes his disciples in this oneness, whatever its meaning.
The most widely translated sentence on earth is said to be Jesus' statement of John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son..." While Christians wish to say that the word "only-begotten" gives Jesus special status among all the "sons of God", again there is a problem of ambiguity.
The same word translated as "only-begotten" is found at Hebrews 11:17. In this verse the word refers to Isaac. The Bible itself shows that Isaac's older brother Ishmael outlived his father (Genesis 25:9). Therefore, at no time was Isaac, strictly speaking, the only-begotten son of Abraham.
Recognizing this, Christian scholars qualify the meaning of the word in this case and give it a less than literal interpretation. But if the meaning is subject to interpretation here, why not also in the passage of John 3:16? Once more the possibility of ambiguity means that John 3:16 is inconclusive evidence.
Whether or not Jesus really used the term "Father" when speaking of God is another controversy. But here our point is again, that such use is inconclusive evidence that God was literally Father to Jesus. All Christians use the term when addressing God. The Jews themselves used the term (John 8:41). Jesus told them that the devil was their father (John 8:44). Of course, he was not speaking literally.
Certain scholars stress the verse of Mark 14:36 where Jesus speaks the Aramaic word for Father, "Abba". They insist that this implies a very unique relationship between Jesus and God. This displays a- schizophrenic forgetfulness. For favorite scripture passages are Romans 8:14 and Galatians 4:6 where every Christian is said to use this term of address for God.
3) Impossible Evidence
An episode is recounted in the twentieth chapter of John and a certain Thomas is quoted as saving, "My Lord and my God." In interpreting this, Christians maintain that Thomas was addressing Jesus by both of these titles. The Muslim would have no objection to the term "Lord". As the Bible explains, the word means "master" and Sarah is said to have called her husband Abraham by this title (Peter 3:6).
The suggestion that Thomas addressed Jesus as literally being God is a different matter. Jesus has already pointed out that the Hebrew scriptures themselves address men as "gods" (John 10:34; Psalms 82:6). This would allow for Thomas' use of the term.
However, Paul gave new rules in 1 Corinthians chapter 8, saying that there are many lords and gods "...yet for us there is but one God, the Father.... and one Lord, Jesus Christ..." Christians apply this verse to sort out the ambiguities of Thomas' expression. But now we are left with an unorthodox doctrine, namely that Jesus is the Father. This ancient heresy has been branded by the Church as Patripassianism, Monarchianism, or Sabellianism. The impossibility of an orthodox interpretation of Thomas is now apparent.
The distinction between Father and Son is essential to the doctrine of the Trinity. This distinction is blurred again when John 14:9 is pressed into service. Here Jesus' reply to a man named Philip is recorded as, "He who has seen me has seen the Father." A strictly literal explication would mean the unacceptable doctrine that Jesus is the Father. So interpreters say that "Father" is here equivalent to "God". However, we cannot possibly be obliged to understand that Jesus meant to say that seeing him was exactly the same as seeing God because he was God.
Our reason is found in the contrariety of John 5:37. Here he told a crowd about the Father saying, "You have neither heard His voice at any time not seen his form."
This section was taken in its entirety from the following source:
http://www.islamview.org/gary_miller.htm
(Click on the link labeled "A Concise Reply to Christianity")
For this transcript in audio and additional lectures Dr. Gary Miller:
http://www.mydeviant.com/miller/gary_miller.html