I ceded that if you ignore evidence regarding the construction of the gospels, you're "right" that Jesus ascribed divinity to himself in some scattered sayings in the synoptics.
I also demonstrated that Jesus pretty much denies doing so in Luke - in the very sayings you hold up erroneously as proof that he does make the claim.
The historical Jesus almost certainly never claimed himself to be God -- or else when a crowd accuses him of that blasphemy, he would have said "I said that, yes," not "you have said so."
Unless he proclaims his divinity and then takes it back when people might throw rocks at him -- in which case, I'm not sure exactly why the author chooses to record the scene.
So of course I understand that Jesus was simply a man, and of course I do not "believe" in the "revelation" of the Greek bible. Not only am I a Jew, but I think that if you make a claim, it's on you to prove it. There's no proof that Jesus is anything other than a man, or that he proclaimed himself so. There is abundant proof that fairly early on, Christianity comported itself to pagan traditions, including as regards dietary laws and circumcision, certainly treated as core practices in the first century. I think it very likely that Christianity comported itself to pagan trinitarianism in the same spirit, and for that, you need Jesus saying he's God -- but note the wiggle room that peeks through when there is popular memory of his "your words not mine" penchant.
The "big secret" throughout the synoptics is that Jesus is the messiah, not that he is God. John's a historical mish-mash of second- or third-hand recollections, as you well know, along with some gnostic tendencies -- such as his words "it is accomplished" when he dies, and strong clues that John originally did not originally conclude with a resurrection scene.
What's revealed over that history can fit your little template of "revelation" if you like. But it has the benefit of being most closely identifiable with truth. And as discomforting as it may seem to you, the truth is as much a question as an answer. Life is about answering it -- each his own way.
So, you've been fed a ready-made sack lunch that somebody told you was the truth, you swallowed it all, and you start from there. I continue to search and to build my belief from the building blocks bequeathed to me. We can both snipe at one word (as you have done here) or we can have an adult conversation.
Try again, if you're up to it.
PFnV
First off, there is evidence that Jesus proclaimed himself as God. You try very hard to dismiss the evidence outlined in the synoptics as well as the Gospel of John. Of course you try to degrade the Gospel John because it clearly demonstrates that Jesus proclaimed his own divnity. So why is John a "second hand" recollection (rather than from John himself)? Well, because it claims that Jesus is God, of course....lol.
The problem is that from the 3rd century to the 18th century no one...and I repeat.....no one......questioned that the Gospel of John was written by John.
"If we except the heretics mentioned by Irenaeus (Against Heresies III.11.9) and Epiphanius (Haer., li, 3), the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel was scarcely ever seriously questioned until the end of the eighteenth century. Evanson (1792) and Bretschneider (1820) were the first to run counter to tradition in the question of the authorship, and, since David Friedrich Strauss (1834-40) adopted Bretschneider's views and the members of the Tübingen School, in the wake of Ferdinand Christian Baur, denied the authenticity of this Gospel, the majority of the critics outside the Catholic Church have denied that the Fourth Gospel was authentic.
On the admission of many critics, their chief reason lies in the fact that John has too clearly and emphatically made the true Divinity of the Redeemer, in the strict metaphysical sense, the centre of his narrative. However, even Harnack has had to admit that, though denying the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel, he has sought in vain for any satisfactory solution of the Johannine problem:
"Again and again have I attempted to solve the problem with various possible theories, but they led me into still greater difficulties, and even developed into contradictions." ("Gesch. der altchristl. Lit.", I, pt. ii, Leipzig, 1897, p. 678.)
A short examination of the arguments bearing on the solution of the problem of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel will enable the reader to form an independent judgment.
Direct historical proof
If, as is demanded by the character of the historical question, we first consult the historical testimony of the past,
we discover the universally admitted fact that, from the eighteenth century back to at least the third, the Apostle John was accepted without question as the author of the Fourth Gospel. In the examination of evidence therefore, we may begin with the third century, and thence proceed back to the time of the Apostles.
The ancient manuscripts and translations of the Gospel constitute the first group of evidence. In the titles, tables of contents, signatures, which are usually added to the text of the separate Gospels,
John is in every case and without the faintest indication of doubt named as the author of this Gospel. The earliest of the extant manuscripts, it is true, do not date back beyond the middle of the fourth century, but the perfect unanimity of all the codices proves to every critic that the prototypes of these manuscripts, at a much earlier date, must have contained the same indications of authorship. Similar is the testimony of the Gospel translations, of which the Syrian, Coptic, and Old Latin extend back in their earliest forms to the second century.
The evidence given by the early ecclesiastical authors, whose reference to questions of authorship is but incidental, agrees with that of the above mentioned sources. St. Dionysius of Alexandria (264-5), it is true, sought for a different author for the Apocalypse, owing to the special difficulties which were being then urged by the Millennarianists in Egypt; but he always took for granted as an undoubted fact that the Apostle John was the author of the Fourth Gospel. Equally clear is the testimony of Origen (d. 254). He knew from the tradition of the Church that John was the last of the Evangelists to compose his Gospel (Eusebius, Church History VI.25.6), and at least a great portion of his commentary on the Gospel of St. John, in which he everywhere makes clear his conviction of the Apostolic origin of the work has come down to us. Origen's teacher, Clement of Alexandria (d. before 215-6), relates as "the tradition of the old presbyters", that the Apostle John, the last of the Evangelists, "filled with the Holy Ghost, had written a spiritual Gospel" (Eusebius, op. cit., VI, xiv, 7).
Of still greater importance is the testimony of St. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons (d. about 202), linked immediately with the Apostolic Age as he is, through his teacher Polycarp, the disciple of the Apostle John. The native country of Irenaeus (Asia Minor) and the scene of his subsequent ministry (Gaul) render him a witness of the Faith in both the Eastern and the Western Church. He cites in his writings at least one hundred verses from the Fourth Gospel, often with the remark, "as John, the disciple of the Lord, says". In speaking of the composition of the Four Gospels, he says of the last:
"Later John, the disciple of the Lord who rested on His breast, also wrote a Gospel, while he was residing at Ephesus in Asia" (Adv. Haer., III, i, n. 2). As here, so also in the other texts it is clear that by "John, the disciple of the Lord," he means none other than the Apostle John.
We find that the same conviction concerning the authorship of the Fourth Gospel is expressed at greater length in the Roman Church, about 170, by the writer of the Muratorian Fragment (lines 9-34). Bishop Theophilus of Antioch in Syria (before 181) also cites the beginning of the Fourth Gospel as the words of John (Ad Autolycum, II, xxii). Finally, according to the testimony of a Vatican manuscript (Codex Regin Sueci seu Alexandrinus, 14), Bishop Papias of Hierapolis in Phrygia, an immediate disciple of the Apostle John, included in his great exegetical work an account of the composition of the Gospel by St. John during which he had been employed as scribe by the Apostle.
It is scarcely necessary to repeat that, in the passages referred to, Papias and the other ancient writers have in mind but one John, namely the Apostle and Evangelist, and not some other Presbyter John, to be distinguished from the Apostle."
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Gospel of Saint John
So no, I do not accept that John is a "second hand recollection". John is quite clear that Jesus proclaimed his divinity.
Again.....you also ignore the entire oral tradition of the church. How can you ignore that even as early as the 1st century we see the use of the Trinitarian baptismal formula?
You go on to say that, "I think it very likely that Christianity comported itself to pagan trinitarianism in the same spirit". But again, where is your proof?
I have challenged you a number of times on this and you have not once provided any evidence outside of "similarities" that you readily admit do not prove borrowing.
Ulitmately, that is the bottom line. Your argument was about Rome and her influence over Catholic teaching. You have failed to provide any proof whatsoever to demonstrate that Rome influenced the church to contradict teachings from its deposit of faith.
If you're up to it, try again with another doctrine. Any doctrine.
