Picture Credits to Museum of the Bible. © Museum of the Bible, 2024
By Deanna Huff, Ph.D. | February 2, 2025
Millard Erickson once stated, "The deity of Christ sits at the pinnacle of controversy and belief concerning the Christian faith."[1] Throughout history, critics have argued that Jesus never claimed to be God and that the early Christians did not recognize or believe that Jesus was divine. Some critics theorize that Jesus thought himself to be a messiah, but not God. Bart Ehrman advocates that Jesus became God over time; he states, "Did he call himself the messiah? If so, what did he mean by it? And did he call himself God? Here I want to stake out a clear position: messiah, yes; God, no."[2] Yet, we find early Christians worshipping Jesus in archaeology, and the Scriptures indicate Jesus claimed to be God.
Evidence in Archaeology: Jesus is God
From the Holy Land, the Megiddo Mosaic floor dates back to 230 A. D. It provides evidence that Jesus was worshipped as God. Part of the Mosaic inscription remembers Gainus, a Roman centurion, and five noteworthy women. A significant inscription on the floor is a statement of gratitude to the woman donor of the table that is placed in the middle of the floor, which reads, "The God-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial." This archaeological discovery provides evidence that the early Christians worshipped Jesus. Scriptural witness provides reasons for these early Christians to believe Jesus is God.
Evidence in the Scriptures: Jesus is God
John's Gospel is consistently recognized as having high Christology, and rightly so, but Mark is not deficient in identifying Jesus as Christ, the living God. The Gospel of Mark, dated earlier than John, implicitly references Jesus' divinity. It's important to recognize the New Testament Gospels as a continuing story from the Old Testament. Many of the hearers of the Gospels were filtering the words of Jesus in light of the Old Testament. Richard Hays claimed, "If the scriptural intertextuality in Mark are ignored, a diminished Christology inevitably follows."[3] And Augustine once wrote, "The new is in the old concealed; the old is in the new revealed." So it is significant for the reader to understand that the actions and words of Jesus were indicating that He is God in the flesh.
Jesus Healed
From the beginning pages of the book of Mark, Jesus begins with a string of healings (1:21-28, 29-31, 32-39, 40-45). Onlookers were observing him healing the sick, the blind and the lame. These healings would be identified with God, and the Scribes are very aware of the Old Testament passages that make these claims (Ex. 23:25; Jer. 30:17; Isa. 57:18-19, 2 Kgs. 20:1-11).
Jesus heals a paralytic and claims He has the ability to "forgive sins" (Mk. 2:5). However, the scribes were indignant and attested that Jesus was committing blasphemy for saying he could forgive sins. They understood that only Yahweh could forgive sins (Psalm 103:10-12; 130:3-4; Isa. 43:25; 55:7; Micah 7:18-19). Then Jesus used a title to identify his authority that has great significance, he said "Which is easier 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… pick up your pallet and go home" (Mk. 2:9-11).
Jesus Has Authority Over the Law
Jesus states, "the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath" (2:28). When the listeners heard this message through the filters or lens of the OT, they were hearing the fourth Commandment states, "Remember the Sabbath, keep it holy" (Ex. 20:8). They knew there is only one Lord, as it is taught in the shema (Duet. 6). He is Lord of the Ten Commandments and the Sabbath, now Jesus is identifying with Yahweh having authority over the Law.
Jesus Has Authority Over Creation
Jesus has power over creation. Mark describes the event when the disciples are in the midst of a storm with waves and wind overtaking the boat. Jesus is asleep when the disciples approach him about the situation:
"Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" (Mk. 4:35-41).
The obvious reaction of anyone with the ability to calm the waves and the sea by a command would definitely ignite the amazement that is noted in the text from the disciples. But they were not just experiencing what he was doing, but hearing through the lens of the Hebrew text.
Psalm 107:25-30: "For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their evil plight; they reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man!"
Just as in Psalms, Yahweh is the one who is equated with the one who can calm the seas. Mark is demonstrating the same attributes that are in Yahweh are also in Jesus. The reader will begin to recognize why the Pharisees and Scribes were indignant by the statements Jesus made. They understood through the quotes, echoes, and allusions of the OT that Jesus declared that He is God in the flesh.
Conclusion
Critics have developed arguments that the early Christians did not recognize Jesus as divine and that He did not claim to be God. However, the archaeological evidence and the Gospel of Mark show evidence that the hearers understood Jesus's claim to be God quite plain. In fact, the Scribes and Pharisees were so outraged by His claims they put him on trial and crucified Him, thinking that death could keep Him down, but Jesus has authority even over death.
About the Author
Deanna Huff, Th.M., Ph.D.
Deanna Huff is a wife and mother. She is passionate about teaching others to share and defend their faith, drawing on 25 years of experience in the field. Her publications include The Prophets’ Use of the Shepherd Motif and Its Contribution to Their Presentation of the Character of God, and she has contributed chapters to Why Creationism Still Matters and Strong Faith.
She works at Museum of the Bible. She is also a speaker who has led seminars for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Ladies Retreat, and the State Evangelism Conference. In addition, she taught high school students for ten years at Christian Heritage Academy, covering subjects such as Bible, Universal History, Apologetics and Philosophy.
Deanna earned a Ph.D. in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University. She holds a Master of Theology in Apologetics and Worldview from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, a Master of Divinity with Biblical Languages from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Oklahoma.
Deanna is an active member of Capitol Hill Baptist Church where she co-hosted a podcast called The Analysis with Pastor Mark DeMoss. She also co-hosted a podcast with her daughter Ellie Huff called but why should i care. She and her husband teach an adult Sunday school class, discipling others in the faith.
Notes
[1] Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, Third (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013).
[2] Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee, Kindle (HarperCollins, n.d.), 119.
[3] Richard Hays, Reading Backwards (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014), 28.
(c) 2025. Bellator Christi.
First, let us assume for the sake of argument that the apostles viewed Jesus as god at some point before he was crucified. I'm not seeing how early false ascriptions of deity to Jesus carry any more force than late false ascriptions of deity to Jesus. The apostles were wrong about Jesus enough times to justify the modern reader to suspect embellishment. Unfortunately, the gospel most clear about Jesus' deity just happens to be the one most scholars date the latest of the 4 canonical gospels.
Second, some early "heretical" sects, such as the Ebionites, did not view Jesus as deity. We are under no obligation to brush them off as quickly as the modern eager Christian apologist with their handy-dandy bible. So if we don't brush off those "heretics" as quickly as today's "orthodox", we aren't doing anything unreasonable. Our slowness to discount them doesn't express or imply that we are allowing the devil to interfere with our studies.
We could be completely reasonable to say one of those early sects that subsequently disappeared had the correct view. If the "false" Roman Catholicism could get going at an early stage and maintain dominance for centuries, there's nothing the least bit unreasonable in positing that a false conception of Jesus could just as easily catch on during the early period and dominate the future of the Church. If church history had people like Arius of Alexandria who denied Jesus' deity, but church history records nobody arguing that Jesus was a woman, it's probably because God wanted Jesus' gender to be clearer than Jesus' deity. Do Jehovah's Witnesses, Way Internationals and others deny Jesus' deity? Blame it on God, who could have made Jesus' deity equally as clear as Jesus' gender, but chose not to do so.
Third, as shown in Philo, the Jews of the 1st century did not have a logically consistent notion of "god" in the first place, pretending that the logos was a "second god" despite their alleged commitment to monotheism. See Ronald Williamson, Jews in the Hellenistic World – Philo (Cambridge, 1989) p. 107. Then we have a slew of other studies that have come out in the last 150 years positing that Jews were less monotheistic and more henotheistic. See, e.g., Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (Eerdmans, 2002). See also Watson and Curtis, eds, Conversations on Canaanite and Biblical Themes: Creation, Chaos and Monotheism (De Gruyter 2022). Hard to tell which is worse, the sophistry necessary to defend early Gnosticism, or the sophistry necessary to defend ancient biblical conceptions of "deity" and personal agency.
Fourth, the earlier you date recognition of Jesus' deity, the more you support the copy-cat Savior hypothesis, since it was in the 1st century and before that the common people expected incarnation of a god. Acts 14:11. It doesn't matter if the stories of Jesus didn't perfectly mirror the pre-Christian stories about pagan gods...there's nothing unreasonable in the hypothesis that says the Christians took pre-Christian pagan notions and gave them a new twist. Borrowing can be proved even the absence of exact copying, ask any copyright lawyer. Exact copying is not required in order to reasonably justify a theory of borrowing, it's only required by desperate apologists who previously discovered that exact-copying can never be proved.
Fifth, if juries of today can reasonably disagree on how to interpret evidence of a crime committed less than 5 years ago, juries of today can likely more reasonably disagree about interpretation of evidence that originated 2000 years ago.
Sixth, god in the first century was not incapable of causing the NT authors to make statements about Jesus' deity that were equally as clear as those drawn up by the Council of Nicaea and modern Trinitarian churches. I am reasonable to conclude that god did not want all sincere seekers to appreciate the deity of Christ. Your alternative is to say absolutely all Christ seekers who deny his deity, must therefore have lacked sufficient sincerity toward god. That's a horrifically bigoted thing to say, and it is not so compelling clear as to justify the least bit of dogmatism about it.
Finally, I see no point to refuting skeptical notions that Jesus' deity was a late invention. Jesus did not express or imply that confession of his deity was a belief essential to the salvation of modern Gentiles. And yet despite the problems created by dispensationalism, you will likely blindly insist that if Jesus imposed anything on anybody, he meant to impose it on everybody in the future. Like John 8:24. No dice.
Let's just say an unbeliever would have to be shockingly gullible to find the argument for early recognition of Jesus' deity to pose any greater threat to skepticism than the positing of early Judaizers or early Gnostics would.