Did the historical Jesus really claim to possess divine authority? Although there is a virtual consensus among scholars that the earliest Christians worshiped Jesus as divine, a key question remains: Is there continuity between this belief and Jesus’s self-claims? This paper argues that Jesus’ words at his Jewish examination were understood by his Jewish adversaries as an unparalleled claim to possess divine authority, demonstrating historical continuity between Jesus’ self-understanding and the early Christian belief in him as a divine figure.
Regarding Mark 14:53-65, scholars like Bart Ehrman acknowledge that Mark presents Jesus as making a divine claim but rejects the historicity of this account. In contrast, Daniel Kirk asserts that even on a literary level, Jesus merely made an idealized human claim to authority––not a divine one. This study critically engages both views. It argues for the historicity of this pivotal exchange, including Jesus’ use of Daniel 7:13-14 and Psalm 110:1, which resulted in a blasphemy accusation. Indeed, Jesus’s Jewish adversaries likely heard these claims as blasphemous for a variety of reasons, including a perceived disrespect for God’s appointed leaders and claiming to possess divine authority to judge sins—a role uniquely reserved for God in Jewish thought, rather than one that could be attributed to human luminaries in eschatological judgment.
The research contributes to evangelical scholarship by strengthening the historical foundation of Jesus’ divine self-understanding and its continuity with Nicene Christology. As the Church commemorates the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, this paper highlights the way that Jesus’ own divine claims are the historical basis for later creeds affirming his deity. Additionally, in light of a recent survey showing that 43% of evangelical Americans believe that Jesus is not God (Ligonier Ministries and LifeWay Research, The State of Theology 2022), the present study bolsters apologetic efforts to engage critical scholarship and popular skepticism concerning the self-identity of the historical Jesus.