TTSWYF: These arguments are null and voided out by the facts that those around Jesus wanted to kill him for blasphemy. Jesus was in danger of being killed on more than one occasion for the blasphemy of claiming equality with God. That valid point seems to be lost on those who promote 'I have been' instead of 'I am'
I would like to respectfully point out two points:
First, a question: "If the arguments [presented in this post] are null and voided by the facts that those around Jesus wanted to kill him for blasphemy" as you say, then why didn't those Jews bring up this most serious violation of Jewish law before the Sanhedrin, the ideal place to do so to get Jesus quickly killed? It seems that if that is the main argument you can come up with to prove the "I have been" defenders are wrong, then the very same argument is nulled by the fact that those very same Jews held back from presenting this accusation at this most relevant moment in the High Court of law.
Secondly, did you read the context presented in the article?" See below:
Does it take Jesus claiming to be God to prompt the Jews to kill him?
No. It was even forbidden for others to say that Jesus was the Messiah.
(John 9:22) And why was Stephen the martyr stoned to death? Stephen
was stoned, not because he claimed to be God, nor because he claimed
Jesus was God, but because he was proclaiming Jesus to be the
heavenly-exalted Son of Man, the Messiah. (Acts 7.55-58)
Traditionalists
seem to be also remiss of the context at hand. The truth is that Jews
had been trying to kill Jesus prior to the “I am” statements, and
afterwards: Mt. 12.14; 16.21; Mr. 3.6; John 5.18; 7.1; 7.19; 7.25;
10.31-33; 11.53. Their motives included: Sabbath breaking, ‘calling
God his own Father,’ (John 5.18) blasphemy for saying, “I and the
Father are one” (10.30), ‘making himself to be God (or, a god, NEB)
being a man’ (10-33), for claiming: “I am God's Son” (10.36), for
saying he was ‘doing the works of the Father,’ and being “in union with
the Father” (10.38-39), for ‘performing many signs’ (11.47,53). Take
note that in those occasions, Jesus did not do anything wrong. It was
the Jews' perception of Jesus' actions that were wrong.
At Luke
4:23-29, the Jews tried to kill Jesus, not because he claimed to be God,
but only because he brought out their hypocrisy and made them angry.
Yes, the record shows that before Jesus spoke the “ego eimi” words at
John 8:58, the Jews already were seeking to kill Jesus for simply
claiming that ‘the truth he taught came from God.’ (John 7:16,19; 8:37,
8:40) Furthermore, consider this: Prior to Jesus' statement of verse
58 (ch. 8), he had “exposed” Jews for the following actions:
‘ignorance’ (John 8:14); of being ‘judgmental’ (8:15); of not
‘knowing’ Jesus and his Father, God (8:19,55); of impending death for
their sinfulness (8:21,24); of being ‘worldly’ (8:23); of ‘unbelief’
(8:24,45); of being ‘slaves to sin’ (8:32-34); of ‘murderous
intentions’ (8:37,40); of ‘not following Abraham's example’
(8:39,40); of ‘indifference’ to Jesus' preaching (8:37,43); of ‘having
deaf ears’ (8.47); of being ‘children to the Devil’ (8:44); of ‘not
observing the word of the Father’ (8:38,55); of ‘dishonoring’ Jesus
(8:49); of being ‘liars’ (8:55), all in one chapter.
That's a
lot of incriminations brought up by Jesus against the Jews in just one
brief encounter. Any of these alone would suffice to get the Jews
upset. Add to that the build-up of previous encounters leading to this
one, and it's easy to see why the Jews felt they could no longer
tolerate this man in their land. But it was their intention to kill
Jesus all along. The 8.58 incident where Christ asserts his
“superiority” over Abraham (historically, the most distinguished of all
Jewish ancestors) was ‘the straw that broke the camel's back.’
This must have been why scholar Ernst Haenchen explained the Jews' accusations as a ‘mistake’: “The Jews are therefore
completely mistaken when they accuse him [Jesus] of blasphemy: he makes
himself equal to God. He actually stands in the place of God as the one
sent by him.” (John 2: A Commentary on the Gospel of John, Chapters 7-21 in Hermeneia, 1984, p. 30.)
At any rate, the Jews dared not to present their accusations (‘mistake’) where most relevant, at the Sanhedrin.
