OK, I stand corrected.
A silly argument does not affect the initial premise of the nature of the oneness between the Father and the Son.
McClellan uses the "silly" consequence to argue that interpreting John 10.30 only as ontological consubstantiality creates a logical inconsistency with John 17. Therefore, the "silly argument" directly challenges the validity of that particular narrow interpretation.
Paul speaks of divine sonship 'by adoption' and Peter as 'partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4 – although probably not Peter, but still dated 60-150AD, contemporary with if not prior to John, before any theology of divine participation was fully worked out).
Peter and Paul don't counter McClellan's analysis of how unity is presented within John.
A "partaking in the divine nature" was probably understood more in terms of sharing God's power, agency, or character rather than his fundamental being. Refer to the preceding verse in 2 Peter 1.3 so that we will not take it out of context:
According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.
Given the emphasis on "divine power" in verse 3, the "partaking of the divine nature" in verse 4 can be reasonably interpreted as sharing in God's effective attributes and capabilities - the very power that enables believers to live godly lives.
Romans 8.29:
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Being "conformed to the image of his Son" points towards a sharing of Christ's characteristics and a reflection of God's nature in believers, not an ontological assimilation into the divine being.
And McClellan make not mention of the sending of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, which lays something of a conditional foundation for this mutual indwelling between Father, Son and believers. (cf John 10:16)
It's only problematic if one assumes 'ontological consubstantiality' ...
McClellan mentions this 'mutual indwelling' a dozen times, but apart from arguing what it can't be, never offers any suggestion of what it might be.
In the ancient Near East and early Judaism, one’s authority was connected with their name, and that authority was communicable along with the name. In the Hebrew Bible, God's name being "in" the angel of YHWH grants him God's authority. Exodus 23.20-21 state, "Look, I am sending a messenger before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place I have established. Pay attention to him and listen to his voice. Do not rebel against him, because he won’t pardon your transgressions, for my name is in him." McClellan applies this same concept to Jesus. The mutual indwelling described in John's Gospel is facilitated by the reception and possession of the divine name.
He posits that an authorized possessor of the divine name could "speak on behalf of God and even claim identification as God not because you were God but because you were the authorized possessor of the Divine name." He likens Jesus to a "walking talking sentient Divine image," arguing that "to see me is to see God not because Jesus is God but because Jesus is the authorized bearer of the Divine name," manifesting God's presence. In the ancient world divine images were material representations of deities (or what we sometimes call idols).
John 10.16 does speak of unity ("one flock, one shepherd"), but it doesn't explicitly detail the mechanism of this unity in terms of the Holy Spirit in the same way that later Trinitarian theology would.
Pointing out bad scholarship doesn't validate his own.
Well he's interpreting John with McClellan, let's be fair.
McClellan interprets the Gospel of John through a framework informed by his understanding of first-century Judaism and a critique of later theological interpretations. At the same time he is drawing evidence from the text of John itself.
Examples:
at 0.12 "So the first scripture is John 10:30 that’s a pretty short one it is Jesus just saying I and the father are one if this is Jesus claiming to be God then the sense must be I and the father are one in substance or essence but not in person...”
McClellan accepts, as do scholars, that Jews and Christians at the time saw a hierarchy of divinity, of the God and gods, (with or without the definite article), so it's unlikely John meant 'one in substance or essence' ... I find his mode or argument somewhat disingenuous, but that might be my critical reasoning.
You suggested earlier that John 10.30 could well mean Jesus is ontologically one with God, even if the technical dialogue hadn't happened yet . . . This flies in the face of the idea that it's unlikely John meant "one in substance" due to the lack of philosophical tools.
And I rather think had I said that, I would be accused of reading 4th century terminology onto John ...
at 5:32 “there’s another reason we know that John 10:30 is not Jesus saying I am God ...”
But Jesus never says ‘I am God’, He says ‘I and the Father are one’. There is a distinction. (Is this an example of a Straw Man?)
He doesn't necessarily claim Jesus literally said "I am God" in that verse. He is addressing an interpretation of "I and the Father are one" as a claim to being God in the sense of ontological unity. There are Christians that make this claim. Why are you making this so difficult?
at 6:37 "this argument doesn't really make any sense if it's trying to defend the claim that Jesus is the very God of Israel ...
Again, John is not saying that. he claims a filial relation to God at John 10:36. For this, his audience seek to stone him, for that blasphemy.
McClellan’s counter-argument seems to rest on the common mis-translation of John 10:35 “being a man, makest thyself God” (KJV).
A more accurate translation – Hart's for instance, reads “and because you who are a man make yourself out to be a god.” Suffice to say Hart offers a better translation, but still reads the thrust of the text as Jesus' claim to divine status.
I think you mean John 10.33, not 10.35.
McClellan directly addresses this translation issue much earlier in his explanation of John 10.33. He states: "this should actually be making yourself a God because it is an arthrous just as anthropos in the previous Clause is an arthrous there's a parallelism going on here though only a human you're making yourself a God or though only human qualitatively you are making yourself deity or Divine qualitatively." Therefore, McClellan aligns with Hart's translation of θεός in John 10.33 as "a god."
McClellan goes on:
7.11 “Jesus is pointing out there’s nothing blasphemous about a human claiming divinity, claiming to be divine, not claiming to be God but claiming divinity to be divine ... “
This seems to me somewhat disingenuous. Why did His audience seek to stone Him?
Even with the translation "a god," this could still be perceived as blasphemous within a strict monotheistic context. McClellan believes that Jesus was claiming to be divine, in the sense of being God's son and authorized representative, not ontologically identical to the Father.
Hart offer a much more logical and likely reason. His translation reads:
“Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law ‘I said, “You are gods”? If he called gods those to whom God’s Logos came, and the scripture cannot be dissolved, how is it that, because I have said I am the Son of God, you say, ‘You blaspheme’ to one whom the Father sanctified and sent out into the cosmos?" (John 10:34-36)
Hart's translation directly supports McClellan's central point that Jesus's defense in John 10 relies on the precedent of scripture calling humans "gods." Hart's translation explicitly frames the accusation as stemming from Jesus saying "I am the Son of God." Still, nothing contradicts McClellan here. The audience's reaction of wanting to stone Jesus suggests they did interpret his claims as blasphemous . . . whether they understood him to be claiming to be God directly or claiming a divine status they deemed inappropriate. Again, nothing here really contradicts McClellan's claims.
Note that most translations say “unto whom the word of God came) (v35), whereas Hart (whom McClellan favours, by the way) uses ‘Logos’. I offer his commentary on the text:
“It was a belief among many Jewish and Christian thinkers of late antiquity that the Logos of God – which is to say, that mediating divine principle or agency whereby the Father expressed himself in created reality – was the direct subject of all the theophanies and divine visitations narrated in Hebrew scripture; for God in his proper, “Most High” reality was beyond all immediate contact with the created order. For Christians, this meant that these Old Testament revelations of God, from Genesis through Ezekiel and beyond, were acts of the divine Son before his incarnation, as the one who is the “express image” of the Father, and so the one in whom the Father is seen. I have therefore translated the verse as a reference to the Logos of the theophanies.”
This understanding, specifically the idea of God Most High being above all, and His intervention in the world being through divine intermediaries, it is these intermediaries who can claim divine status, not all and sundry. In the Scriptures these were angels, prophets, priests and/or kings – God the Father’s chosen instruments, and one cannot claim to be a chosen instrument lightly. The ‘Judeans’ (as Hart sees them as a faction, not Judaism per se), saw Jesus as merely a man, not an angel, prophet, priest or king ... hence blasphemy.
In short, both reasons McClellan argues Jesus not claiming to be God are not conclusive.
Translation: McClellan's conclusions remain plausible
