book: They Never Told Me This in Church
Deuble’s book aims to look past the post-biblical traditions that shape modern theology, to see the biblical Jesus afresh. He asserts that this Jesus is in fact not divine. It is commendable to courageously do away with traditions that are comfortable, yet errant. Deuble takes the right approach by studying the relevant Bible passages, while also taking note of historical and logical concerns. However, I find his history, logic, and exegesis to be unsound, resulting in conclusions that are unconvincing.
In terms of history, he implies that he is reporting a scholarly “consensus” (see back cover), but in fact relies heavily on a few authors who do not reflect mainstream historical scholarship. The most important and scholarly recent book about earliest Christian devotion to Jesus is Larry Hurtado’s “Lord Jesus Christ.” Hurtado reaches emphatically different conclusions to Deuble, and backs them up very carefully, arguing that Jesus was treated as divine by the very earliest Christians, despite great odds against this happening.
In terms of logic, Deuble spends some time urging that Jesus was fully human - genuinely growing and earning his Lordship. But this does not vary at all from the historical doctrine of the trinity, which views Jesus as utterly human, as well as utterly divine. Another logical problem is the view that the trinity is too incomprehensible to be genuinely of God. I don’t think this must be the case - Just because something has no familiar analogy and thus is hard to systematize in credal form does not mean that the biblical data is itself unclear.
In terms of exegesis, Deuble’s arguments center around the idea that we must view the New Testament through “Hebrew eyes.” There is some important truth to this: We do need to recognize the influence of the Old Testament and Judaism. But it is naive to practically deny any influence of Hellenism. This naivety reaches absurdity when Deuble even argues that the Greek of John 1 should be understood in a “Hebrew” rather than a “Greek” way. Likewise, Deuble’s linguistic comments (such as on the aorist tense or genitive case) are simplistic and uncompelling.
This is a useful book to read if you want to be challenged, and its aims are noble… but it is methodologically weak, and therefore its conclusions are not altogether convincing.