Why Doubting Thomas Called Jesus God

Transcript edited for the page.

[0:00]

Picture this for a second, okay? You are walking down a really busy city street. Right. Just completely distracted by everything. Yeah. Totally distracted. You're trying to balance like a hot coffee in one hand and your brand new thousand dollar phone in the other. Oh no. I can already see where this is going. Right. So someone bumps your shoulder, the phone slips. The worst feeling. It really is. You just watch in slow motion as it tumbles directly into like an open storm drain or worse straight into a public toilet. Oh man.

So what is the very first thing that comes out of your mouth in that exact moment? Well, I mean, it's not going to be some quiet contemplative whisper, that's for sure. Not a chance. You are going to shout, oh my God, at the absolute top of your lungs. Yeah, just completely instinctively. Exactly. It's a jump scare. It's a visceral, reflexive exclamation, you know? Yeah, your brain just sort of short circuits for a second. Right. And here is the crucial thing for us to realize as modern listeners. There is absolutely zero theology behind that shout. None at all. You aren't making a statement of faith. Exactly. When you drop your phone, you aren't making this sudden, profound, calculated statement about the ontological nature of the creator of the universe. Right. You're just reacting to the adrenaline. Yeah. The adrenaline and the pure shock of the moment. And because you and I live in a 21st century world where that kind of casual, hollowed out exclamation is so deeply wired into our language. Most of us read the climax of the Gospel of John through that exact same modern lens. We really do. We just project our modern linguistic habits right onto the ancient text. We do it all the time. We look at a man named Thomas standing in this locked, dim upper room in first century Jerusalem. Right. He's looking at a man he literally watched die a brutal, very public death just days prior. Which is just unimaginable trauma. Unimaginable. And now that same man is suddenly standing in front of him, breathing, talking, just walking around. Yeah, defying all logic. And when Thomas drops to his knees and says his famous line, you know, my Lord and my God, we as modern readers assume his response is exactly like the dropped phone. We think it's a first century gasp of shock. Right. A jump scare. We think he's just blurting out, oh my God, I can't believe it's you. But the thing is, it wasn't. It wasn't a jump scare at all. And reading it that way actually hides what is arguably the most dangerous political and theological statement of the entire era.

[2:43]

Welcome back to Babel Report. It's so great to be back. Because, you know, this specific moment in the text is the absolute climax of the entire narrative arc. Yeah, it really is the peak of the story. It is. And yet, historically, we have just treated it like this simple slip of the tongue. Which is such a massive disservice to the source material we're unpacking. Totally. If you are joining us, our mission on Babel Report is to take your sources, the historical data, the linguistic research, the cultural context of first century Judea, and answer one vital central question. And it's a big one. It really is. When Thomas looked at his resurrected teacher and spoke those words, what was he actually saying? Right. And perhaps even more importantly for the narrative, why didn't his teacher stop him and correct him? That's the real kicker. We are talking, of course, about Jesus. Or, you know, Yahusha, as his own mother and his friends in Galilee would have actually called him. Right, yeah. It's a question that completely upends how we view the early faith, honestly. How so?

Yeah, because we have this tendency to read this scene as just a nice, comforting story for Sunday school, you know? Oh, for sure, like a neat little morality tale. Exactly. It's framed as a story about a skeptic just getting the physical proof he needed. Right. Doubting Thomas gets his proof. Yeah, but if we dig into the actual historical reality of the language Thomas used and the cultural water he was swimming in, what he said in that room didn't just rattle the religious leaders of his day. No, it was way bigger than that. It was huge. What Thomas confessed was a direct existential threat to the entire Roman Empire. Okay, hold that thought about Rome because that political threat comes back in a massive way later on. Oh, it really does.

[4:25]

But to get there, I think we need to start right where the modern skeptical reader gets stuck. Makes sense. Let's start with the pushback. Yeah, because if I am putting myself in the shoes of our listener right now, I have to push back on this whole premise a little bit. Okay, lay it on me. Put yourself in Thomas's sandals. You are a first century person. You know how biology works.

Dead things stay dead. Exactly. Dead things stay dead. You literally watched your friend and teacher get executed by the state in the most horrific, traumatizing way possible. Yeah. You know for a fact he is gone. And now, suddenly, he just materializes in your living room. It defies reality. It completely defies everything your brain knows about reality. So why couldn't Thomas just be blurting out an exclamation in pure, unadulterated shock? Right. Why does it have to be so deep? Yeah, I mean, why does this have to be some calculated theological confession rather than just a guy whose brain is straight up short circuiting? It's the most natural question to ask, honestly, because as you pointed out with the dropped phone analogy, that is exactly how human beings process trauma and shock today. Right. We just yell things. We do. But to understand why that explanation completely fails for Thomas, we really have to talk about the psychological and religious reality of a first century Judean. Okay, let's unpack that.

[5:49]

We need to introduce this concept of Shoah. Break that down for us. What exactly is Shoah? So in the ancient Judean mindset, the Hebrew word Shoah referred to treating the divine name as worthless. Worthless. Yeah. It meant emptying the titles of the creator of their meaning or just misusing them carelessly. Like taking the Lord's name in vain. Exactly. When you and I think of the third commandment, you know, you shall not take the name of Yahuwah, your God, in vain, we usually filter that through our modern casual culture. Yeah, we think of it as like a polite rule against swearing when you stub your toe on the coffee table. Right. But in the ancient world, particularly after the Babylonian exile, it was so much deeper than a rule about bad manners. It was foundational. It was. It was about treating the identity and the titles of Yahuwah with supreme, terrifying reverence. Because they had a historical memory of what happened when they didn't treat it with reverence, right? Exactly. The collective memory of the Judean people was that their ancestors had treated the covenant lightly. And the consequences were massive. Catastrophic. Because of that, Jerusalem was burned, the temple was destroyed, and they were literally dragged off into exile. Wow. Yeah. So by the time of the first century, the culture had built these massive linguistic fences around the divine name to make sure they never, ever committed that sin again. So they wouldn't even risk it. Never.

The name itself carried the weight of the Creator's very essence. You did not just throw those titles around because you were startled.

[7:24]

Let me offer an everyday metaphor to help our listeners really feel the weight of this. Yeah, I think that would help. Imagine you are in a courtroom today, okay? You are sitting in the witness box, your hand is raised, and you have just been sworn in under oath. Very serious setting. The environment is deadly serious. A federal judge is presiding, the court reporter is typing every single sound you make, and the stakes of the trial are just incredibly high. Okay, I'm picturing it. Now, imagine you accidentally drop your pen. And in your sudden frustration, you scream at the top of your lungs, I swear to God. Oh, boy. What happens in that room? The trial stops cold. Like, immediately. Right. The judge is going to hold you in contempt of court right then and there. Exactly. Because the environment completely dictates the weight of your words. Yeah. You can't just brush it off. In your kitchen at home, dropping a pen and yelling that might just be a bad habit. But in a courtroom, under oath, those words have legal binding weight. Right. You can't just look at the judge and say, oh, sorry, I was just startled. You really can't. To a first century Judean like Thomas, all of life was lived in that courtroom when it came to the divine name. That's a great way to put it. Using God's titles as a flippant exclamation wasn't just a social faux pas, you know. It was a severe violation of the covenant. Yeah, it was Shoah. It was Shoah. He was treating the holiest reality in existence as if it were just some cheap emotional release valve.

[8:54]

Which brings us right back to the upper room. Right. If Thomas was just startled, if he just had a jump scare reaction and blurted out the divine titles because his brain couldn't process the visual of a resurrected man, he wasn't just having a human moment. No, not at all. He was committing a massive, blatant sin right in front of his rabbi. And that is the absolute crux of the evidence we are looking at in the text. It really is the turning point.

If Thomas had just committed shaw, if he had just taken the name in vain out of shock, Jesus was obligated by his role as a Judean teacher to do one of two things in that moment. Right. He couldn't just let it slide. He had to act. Right. First, he needed to sharply rebuke Thomas for blasphemy. He would have to say something like, Thomas, guard your tongue. Exactly. Do not misuse the titles of the Almighty just because you are surprised. Yeah. Or, second, he needed to immediately clarify his own identity to prevent his disciple from committing idolatry. Right, to clear up the confusion. He would need to say, Thomas, calm down. I know this is shocking. I am the Messiah. I am God's appointed king, but I am not the creator. Do not direct those words at me. Because allowing a student to commit idolatry or blasphemy is completely antithetical to everything a first century rabbi stood for. It goes against his entire life's mission. But he doesn't do either of those things. He does neither. Instead, look at what Jesus actually says in the source material. He looks at Thomas, and he validates him. Completely validates him. He says, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. It's astounding.

Jesus does not correct the theology. He doesn't rebuke the language. He actually commends Thomas for finally arriving at the absolute truth. Which forces us to completely re-evaluate the interaction. So what you're saying is, if Thomas was just surprised, Jesus would have scolded him for blasphemy. By not scolding him, Jesus is agreeing with him. Yes, exactly. This isn't a moment of grace where Jesus is just politely ignoring a slip of the tongue from a stressed-out disciple who has had a really hard week. No, it's the exact opposite. It's a moment of coronation. Jesus is accepting the highest possible titles as his rightful due. So if Jesus is endorsing the confession, we need to get a magnifying glass and look incredibly closely at the actual vocabulary Thomas chose to use. We really do. Down to the grammar. Because if he isn't just shouting in surprise, the words he picks are going to tell us exactly what he is claiming. And this is where the linguistic research from your sources is just so illuminating. Oh, it's fascinating.

[11:35]

Walk us through it. Let's look at the precise Greek texts that the author John actually recorded. Okay. The phrase Thomas uses is, Ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou. Okay. Ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou.

I know we have listeners who aren't reading ancient Greek over their morning coffee. Right, yeah. So break down why that specific phrasing actually matters. Well, in English, it usually translates simply to my Lord and my God. Which sounds pretty straightforward. It does. But the Greek is much more emphatic.

Literally, it reads, the Lord of me and the God of me. The Lord of me and the God of me. Yeah. The grammar is unbelievably specific. The definite articles, you know, the the in front of the titles and the possessive pronouns, the of me, are deliberate and highly formal. So this isn't just casual slang. Not at all. In ancient Greek, when you use the definite article with these specific titles, you are locking them into their absolute highest meaning. Got it. This is not casual fractured speech. Thomas is constructing a very specific theological sentence, a formal address, and directing it squarely at the man standing in front of him. But wait, Thomas wouldn't have been thinking or speaking in Greek in that locked room, right? Oh, absolutely not. He was a Judean speaking to another Judean from Galilee. Exactly. The Gospel of John was written in Greek for a much broader audience later on.

[13:00]

Right. But the conversation itself happened in the language of first century Judea. So we have to work backward a bit. Yeah, if we reverse engineer this, if we render this Greek back into the Hebrew or Aramaic that Thomas was actually thinking and feeling in that moment, he would be saying, Adonai sheli v'Elohim sheli.

Adonai sheli v'Elohim sheli. Exactly. Let's define those terms plainly because they carry the weight of the world in the first century. They really do. Let's start with Adonai. I think a lot of people assume that just means sir or master, like a term of deep respect for a human leader. Well, it could be used that way in a strictly secular sense. Sure, like addressing a king. Right. But in the religious tradition of Israel, Adonai had taken on a massive sacred significance. It was way more than just sir. It was the substitute word. Whenever a reader was reciting the Hebrew scriptures out loud in the synagogue and they encountered the divine name, the Tetragrammaton Yahuwah, they would not pronounce it out of reverence. Because of the Shoah concept we talked about. Exactly. They would substitute the word Adonai instead. It was the spoken placeholder for the unutterable name of the Creator.

Wow. So when Thomas looks at a carpenter from Nazareth and says Adonai sheli, he is audibly, deliberately identifying Jesus with the four-letter sacred name of God. Yes, he is pulling no punches. And then he doubles down, right? He does. He doubles down by pairing it with Elohim. Okay, break down Elohim for us. Now, Elohim is a really fascinating word. It can sometimes be used in broader ways to describe spiritual beings, which we will definitely get to in a minute. Right, the whole divine council thing. Yeah. But when it is paired with the definite article and used in this formal structure, the Elohim, it meant one thing and one thing only. Which is? It meant the God of Israel, the one singular uncreated creator of the cosmos.

[14:56]

Okay, let me pause you there and act as the proxy for the listener who knows a bit about ancient history. I love when you do this. Bring on the skepticism. Because the ancient world was spiritually crowded, you know? It wasn't just God and humans. There was a whole spectrum of beings in between.

Very true. Couldn't Judeans in the Second Temple period believe in highly exalted beings without breaking their strict monotheism?

They absolutely did have categories for that. Right. If I'm reading the Hebrew Bible, I see the angel of Yahuwah who seems to carry divine authority. Yep. Or the son of man figure coming on the clouds in the book of Daniel. Or even exalted human figures from their history like Moses or Enoch, who some traditions said were elevated to heavenly thrones and given massive cosmic authority. It was a very rich theological landscape. So weren't there categories available for a guy like Jesus that didn't require him to literally be the creator? You are hitting on exactly the cultural landscape we need to understand to get the full picture. Okay, good. Scholars call this high Christology, but really it's just the ancient idea of a highly exalted divine intermediary. An intermediary, right. And you are absolutely right. There were precedents. There were all these categories available to Thomas. He had options. He had a whole menu of exalted titles he could have chosen if he just wanted to say, Jesus was a super angel or an elevated human.

[16:20]

Right. So why didn't he use them? Let me give you a metaphor from the workplace to explain how I'm processing this. Let's hear it.

Imagine you work for a massive global corporation. You want to praise the regional manager for doing a fantastic job saving the company from a crisis. Okay. Yeah. You go up to them and you use their title. You say, thank you, regional manager. You might even call them vice president if you think they deserve a promotion. Because they did a great job. Exactly. But you do not accidentally walk up to the regional manager and call them the founder and CEO. No, because those titles are mutually exclusive. Right. The CEO category is a category of one. You don't just hand that title out as a compliment. Exactly. If Thomas wanted to say Jesus was just the highest created being, or the ultimate exalted angel, or the son of man from Daniel, He had the vocabulary for that. He had all the words ready to go. He could have used the middle management categories of the heavenly hierarchy. He could have said, my exalted Lord or the great angel. But he didn't. He didn't. He completely bypassed the middle management. He reached right to the top of the corporate ladder and used the exact exclusive vocabulary reserved for the founder and CEO alone. So what you're saying is Thomas deliberately picked the two words reserved exclusively for the creator. leaving zero room for Jesus to just be a really exalted human or angel. Yes, exactly. He locked it in.

[17:45]

But of course, biblical scholars love to find loopholes in the text. Oh, they always do. And there is one specific loophole that frequently gets brought up regarding the word Elohim. Okay, let's explore the loophole. I assume you are talking about the divine council worldview? Yes, this is where it gets a little complex. If you read Psalm 82, the text gets really interesting and frankly, a bit weird for modern readers. It definitely throws people off when they first read it. It says that God takes his place in the divine council and in the midst of the Elohim, the gods, lowercase g, he holds judgment. Right. So there are other Elohim. Exactly. So there is a clear biblical precedent for spiritual beings, members of God's heavenly court, being referred to as Elohim. Okay, I see where this is going. If that's the case, couldn't a skeptic argue that Thomas is just calling Jesus an Elohim, a subordinate created spiritual being who just happens to be very powerful, like a member of this divine council? It's a brilliant scholarly counterpoint, honestly. It is, on the surface. But when you look at the mechanics of what Thomas actually said,

that loophole completely falls apart in the upper room. It completely crumbles. If Thomas had only looked at Jesus and said, my Elohim. Maybe, just maybe, you could try to make the argument that he was recognizing Jesus as a newly appointed member of the divine council. You could try to make that stretch, yeah. But he didn't just say Elohim. He paired it with Kyrios, with Adonai. The combination is the key. The combination is the lock and the key. That specific pairing removes every single ounce of ambiguity.

Yeah, it leaves no wiggle room. You cannot call a subordinate divine council member Adonai. That title is the substitute for Yahuwah alone. Right, you don't call the regional manager the CEO. Exactly. So by using both terms together, Thomas isn't acknowledging a creature. He's making the staggering, paradigm-shifting recognition that the creator of all things has physically entered into his own creation.

[19:51]

And understanding that brings us to one of the most fascinating theological debates happening in the ancient world at that exact time. Oh, this is the part I love. Because Thomas wasn't just pulling this idea out of thin air, you know. You are talking about the two powers in heaven debate. Yes. This is crucial history that most people reading the Bible today have literally never heard of. It's totally glossed over. Long before Christianity became a global faith, long before the New Testament was even written, Judean scholars, rabbis, and mystics were actively debating a mystery they kept finding in their own scriptures. Right. They were seeing something in the text that puzzled them. They were looking at texts where Yahuwah seemed to have an invisible transcendent essence, a God you cannot see without dying, but also a visible interactive manifestation. Like the angel of Yahuwah in the burning bush speaking to Moses. Exactly. Or the pillar of cloud and fire, or the word of the Lord physically appearing to the prophets. Right. They recognized that the text portrayed these two distinct ways God interacted with the world. Almost like two different modes of presence. Yeah. Sometimes God was the invisible sovereign in the heavens, and sometimes God was walking in the garden or eating a meal with Abraham. Which is mind-blowing if you think about it. Yet their core theology insisted God was strictly one. They called this mystery the debate over the two powers in heaven. Two powers, right. They were wrestling with how Yahuwah could be distinct from his visible manifestation while still being the exact same God. And what is happening in that upper room is that Thomas is essentially solving the greatest theological debate of his era live in real time. He's looking right at the visible manifestation. He is looking at it and he's realizing it's not a burning bush. It's not a pillar of cloud. No. It's not a terrifying faceless angel. The visible manifestation of Yahuwah isn't a metaphor or a temporary apparition. It's a man. It is Jesus of Nazareth. So what you're saying is Thomas didn't invent a new religion on the spot. He found the human answer to a massive Judean theological puzzle. Yes. He solved the puzzle with the only answer that fit all the pieces. Before we get to that next piece of evidence, a quick word from our sponsors. Babel Lens is a scholarly Bible reading app that brings the kind of depth we talk about here on Babel Report into your own daily reading. It helps you trace original Greek and Hebrew words like the specific titles Thomas uses right in your own study time. On iPhone, search Babel Lens in the App Store. On Android or your computer, use the web app at babellens.ai.

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[22:56]

So we have this incredible moment of clarity for Thomas, right? But if Thomas was the only one to ever make this connection, we might just write it off as an isolated incident of extreme grief, turning into extreme fanaticism. Yeah, you could argue he's just hallucinating from sorrow. Exactly. If this was truly the answer to the ancient puzzle, we would expect to see it corroborated. We'd need more data. We would expect someone else, totally independent of Thomas, from a completely different background, to arrive at the exact same world-shattering conclusion. And we do. We have a second incredibly powerful witness in the sources, the Apostle Paul. Yes, Paul. Let's walk through Paul's experience on the Damascus Road, because the parallels to Thomas are astounding, even though the environments are completely opposite. It's such a contrasting scene. Here is Paul, or Saul, as he was known then. He's a Pharisee of Pharisees. A very highly educated guy. Right. A man whose entire life, his entire academic career, is dedicated to protecting the strict monotheism of Israel. He was zealous for it. He is so zealous that he is actively hunting down early Christians because he believes their worship of Jesus is blasphemy. Yeah, he's literally on a mission to destroy them. He is on the road, breathing threats, and suddenly he is knocked to the ground by a blinding light from heaven. It is the ultimate terrifying divine encounter. Absolutely. He's experiencing the unapproachable light of God. Right. And what does Paul say to the voice speaking from the light? This is the crucial part. He addresses the voice as Kyrios, Lord. Yep. And remember what we just established about that word for a first century Judean. He is addressing the voice as Yahuwah. He knows he is in the presence of the God of his ancestors. He is on his face in the dirt. And the voice replies to him, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. Which should have short-circuited Paul's brain entirely. I mean, it goes against everything he stood for. Everything he knew, everything he was fighting for was built on the premise that Jesus was a false prophet. It should have shattered his worldview. It really should have. But just like Thomas, Paul doesn't conclude that he made a linguistic mistake. No, he doesn't backtrack. He doesn't say, oh, my bad, I thought you were God, but you're just that dead rabbi. No, he concludes that Jesus rightfully belongs within the identity of Israel's God. It's an incredible shift. Both of these men, one in a quiet room touching physical scars on a human body, the other on a dusty road blinded by unapproachable cosmic light, arrive at the exact same confession.

[25:32]

And that leads to a massive theological problem that they had to solve, frankly. Oh, a huge problem. Because both of these men grew up reciting the same bedrock creed every single day of their lives. You are referring to the Shema. Yes. Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4. Right. Hear, O Israel, Yahuwah our God, Yahuwah is one. It's the core of their faith. This was not just a memory verse you learned in Sunday school and forgot about. This was the pulse of Judean identity. It was everything. It was the first prayer you learned as a child. It was the prayer you tied to your forehead in phylacteries and nailed to the doorposts of your house. It literally surrounded them. It was the last words you hoped to speak on your deathbed, often as martyrs were being executed by Rome. Wow, yeah. It was a fierce, covenantal declaration that Yahuwah alone deserves worship, and that he is utterly, mathematically, spiritually unique. So the obvious question for you listening is, how on earth do Thomas and Paul look at a human being from Galilee,

a guy who slept and ate and bled, and call him God, without completely shattering the Shema? That is the million-dollar question. It requires a fundamental shift in how they understood the word one.

Okay, a shift in definition. Yeah. They had to redefine it without breaking it.

[26:53]

Let's use a metaphor about family and property to explain how they managed to do this without becoming polytheists. I like this one.

Imagine you're the sole heir to a massive ancient family estate. Okay. For generations, the deed to this estate has been in one name, your father's. The authority is singular. The ownership is absolute. No confusion there. You've known this your whole life. It is the bedrock of your family's identity. But then, one day, you are finally allowed to look closely at the actual original deed. And you notice something. And you discover something shocking. The property doesn't just belong to your father. Right. The exact same unified, indivisible authority is permanently shared with a son you didn't know held the title. But the estate hasn't been divided into two separate estates. No. You don't suddenly have two competing landlords. Exactly. The estate is still singular. the ownership is still one. But the nature of that oneness is wonderfully, deeply complex. It's an inclusive oneness. The one includes both father and son in a unified identity.

[27:57]

And this is exactly what Paul does in his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 8, verse 6. It's such a bold move. He actually takes the sacred text of the Shema, the untouchable creed, and he rewrites it to include Jesus. Yeah, he says, For us there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. He literally splits the Shema right down the middle and places Jesus inside the divine identity. So what you're saying is Thomas and Paul didn't throw away their core Judean creed. They discovered the one of the Shema had a human face. Yes. And what is so staggering about this from a purely historical perspective is how incredibly early this is happening. That's a really important point. We are talking about letters written just a couple of decades after the crucifixion.

Very close to the events. This worship of Jesus wasn't some later Gentile corruption. It wasn't a Roman philosophical invention from the second or third century where a bunch of Greeks decided to deify a dead hero like they did with Hercules. No, it wasn't a myth that developed over centuries. It was there from the absolute beginning, built and defended by strictly monotheistic Judeans who were willing to die for the belief that God is one. It's a beautiful historical reality.

[29:13]

It really is. But of course, whenever you make a claim this big, you are going to encounter skepticism. Oh, always. And as the host, I want to voice the skepticism that is probably brewing in the minds of some of our listeners right now. Okay, let's hear the skeptical view. Someone listening might say, okay, that's a beautiful theological arc. It ties up neatly. But what if the early church just invented this whole upper room scene? Like they just made it up. Right. What if, decades later, a bunch of Christians wanted to make Jesus look more divine, to compete with Roman gods, so they just wrote this story and put these high-level theological words into Thomas' mouth as propaganda? It's the most natural, skeptical question to ask, and historians wrestle with this all the time. Because texts were forged in the ancient world. They absolutely were. But the text itself, the way the narrative is constructed, completely dismantles that theory. How so? We use something called the Criterion of Embarrassment in historical studies. The Criterion of Embarrassment. Yeah. Think about it. If you are a PR person for a brand new religious movement, and your goal is to invent propaganda to prove your leader is God, how do you write the story? Well, you make all the followers look incredibly faithful. Right. You have them recognize him instantly. You write a neat, clean, triumphant story where everyone bows down the second he walks in the room singing hymns of praise. Exactly. You do not make one of your main characters, one of your foundational 12 leaders, a stubborn, cynical skeptic who refuses to believe his friends. No, it's way too messy. It's entirely too messy. It makes the leadership look bad. It is entirely too messy.

You don't invent a guy who demands to poke physical holes in a traumatized body before he will believe a word anyone says. It just doesn't fit the mold of PR propaganda. Not at all. The inclusion of Thomas' doubt serves historical plausibility, not neat apologetics. Because real people are messy. Exactly. Real people process trauma and claims of the miraculous differently. When faced with the impossible, some people weep. Some people rejoice. And some people cross their arms and say, unless I put my finger in the mark of the nails and place my hand in his side, I will never believe. Right. The early church wouldn't invent a story that makes one of their foundational pillars look that faithless and obstinate. It would undermine their own authority. Exactly. It rings true because it is the messy, uncomfortable reality of human grief and shock.

[31:38]

And yet, even with that messy reality, John, the author of the gospel, uses this gritty moment to complete a massive literary design, doesn't he? He does. John is a brilliant, brilliant writer. He really is. If you look at the architecture of his gospel, he opens with the most audacious theological claim imaginable. In the beginning was the Word. Yes. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That is chapter 1, verse 1. He tells the reader the cosmic secret right up front. He does. But then John spends the entire rest of the book, chapter after chapter, miracle after miracle, waiting for a human being in the story to figure it out. It's a classic case of dramatic irony. It really is. We, the readers, know exactly who Jesus is from the prologue, but the disciples in the story are constantly fumbling in the dark, misunderstanding his parables, getting confused about where he is going. Right. They are just missing the point over and over. And Thomas's confession in chapter 20 is the climax. It's the payoff for the entire book. Yes. What the narrator tells us in the abstract in chapter one, Thomas finally confesses out loud in the flesh at the very end. The theological claim becomes a personal reality.

[32:57]

But as beautiful as that literary arc is, we have to return to that open loop we teased at the very beginning of the discussion. Ah, yes. The political threat. Right. Because this confession wasn't just happening in a theological vacuum, isolated to Judean debates about the Shema. No, it was happening under the heavy, violent shadow of the Roman Empire. Yes, we really have to pay off the political threat because it raises the stakes of everything we've talked about today. It changes the whole context. In the Roman world at the end of the first century, right around the exact time John's gospel was circulating among the early churches, there was a man sitting on the throne of the empire named Domitian.

And Domitian was not a humble guy. Not at all. Emperor Domitian was not content with just being a political ruler or a military commander. No, he wanted more than that. He demanded absolute religious allegiance from his subjects. He demanded to be addressed by a very specific Latin title, Dominus et Deus. Lord and God. Lord and God.

Caesar wasn't just claiming to be in charge of the taxes, the aqueducts, and the roads. Right. He was claiming supreme divine authority over the cosmos. He was demanding that his citizens recognize him as the ultimate power. And if you didn't, there were severe consequences. Exactly. And here is John publishing a document where the hero of the story, a crucified Judean rabbi from a backwater province, is declared to be the true Kyrios kai Theos. The true Lord and God. So what you're saying is calling Jesus my Lord and my God wasn't just bad for your religious standing. It could get you executed by the Roman Empire. The treason of the text is just off the charts. It's staggering. We often miss this because we separate religion and politics in our modern minds. We treat them as two different spheres. Right. But in the first century, they were the exact same thing. This wasn't just a theological dispute in a local synagogue about how to interpret Psalm 82. No, it was an insurrection. Calling Jesus Lord and God meant taking the ultimate titles of absolute authority completely away from Caesar. Wow. It meant looking at the most powerful, ruthless man on earth and saying, no, that title does not belong to you. It belongs to a man your empire executed. It was an act of profound revolutionary defiance. It was dangerous. If you are a Roman magistrate reading this text, you don't see a sweet story about overcoming doubt. You see a political manifesto. You see a direct threat to the state. Calling Jesus my Lord and my God wasn't just bad for your religious standing with the Pharisees. it could literally get you executed by the Roman Empire for high treason. It absolutely could, and for many early believers it did. They paid the ultimate price for it. It was a violent clash of two kingdoms.

[35:43]

But to fully grasp the victory of the kingdom Jesus was bringing, why these early Christians were willing to die for this confession, we need to look at the tiny chronological clue John leaves us right before Thomas speaks. You're talking about the timeline of the scene. Yes. John is incredibly detail-oriented.

He doesn't waste words. He goes out of his way to tell us that this specific encounter with Thomas happened on the first day of the week. Right. Now, to a modern ear, that just means it was a Sunday. We think, okay, the weekend is over, back to work tomorrow. The start of the work week. Exactly. But to a first century Judean mind, the calendar was deeply, profoundly theological.

Because their entire conception of time was based on the Genesis creation narrative. Precisely. The week was seven days long. The seventh day was the Sabbath, the ultimate day of rest, symbolizing the completion of the old creation. Right. God created the world, and on the seventh day, he rested. The cycle was complete. So if John tells us something monumental is happening on the first day of the new week, it is symbolically happening on the eighth day. The eighth day. It's stepping completely outside the original cycle of time. It's a brand new era. Let me throw out a road trip metaphor to help visualize this. Perfect. Let's hear it. Imagine you have been driving across the country for seven days straight. You've been staring at the exact same highway lines, eating at the same greasy fast food joints, staying in the same identical chain hotels. You're exhausted. You know exactly what to expect. You know exactly how this road works. Waking up on the eighth day isn't just waking up for more of the same scenery. Right. The eighth day in this story is the moment you cross the border into a completely new, uncharted country. The landscape completely changes. The landscape completely changes. The air smells different. The very laws of physics feel different. You've left the old world behind. You aren't just continuing history. You are starting a new kind of history. You have. The eighth day signifies the launch of the new creation. It really does. In the old creation, the seven-day cycle, death was the absolute dictator. Everyone died, and they stayed dead. That was the ultimate rule. But on the eighth day, that dictator has finally been defeated. A new reality has invaded the present.

[38:06]

Which is incredible. But this leads us to the ultimate, most profound question of the entire story. The thing that finally brings Thomas to his knees. It's the question of what actually pushes Thomas over the edge to believe this. Because he needed proof. Right. Because what he sees in that room isn't what we would expect a divine manifestation to look like. No, not at all. He doesn't see a glowing spirit. He doesn't see a terrifying angel of light with a sword. Nope. He doesn't see majesty in the way we usually define it. No. What pushes Thomas to fall down and confess Yehovah in the flesh is the wounds. The physical scars. Think about the theological implications of this. They're massive. Jesus did not come back from the grave with a pristine, flawless, upgraded replacement body. He didn't erase the trauma. He didn't. He came back bearing the brutal, jagged, horrifying marks of the Roman cross. He deliberately kept the holes in his hands. He kept the spear gash in his side. And this is vital for our understanding of the text. The resurrection does not erase his suffering. It permanently validates it. It is the ultimate, unimaginable shock to Judaism and, frankly, to Greek philosophy as well. It is the shock of all shocks.

The Greeks believed God was impassable, that God could not suffer, because suffering is a weakness. And Judeans believed a crucified man was cursed by God. Exactly. And here is Thomas realizing that Yahuwah himself, the transcendent creator who spoke the stars into existence, would not only become human, but would carry the physical eternal scars of his covenant faithfulness to his people. It's breathtaking. He loved them enough to step into the dirt, to let them tear his flesh. And he kept the scars to prove it. The wounds are the signature of divine love permanently written in human flesh. So what you're saying is Thomas didn't just see a ghost. He saw the creator of the universe bearing the scars of our rescue.

[39:59]

Yes. And that brings us to the final verdict on the central question we started with today. That really ties it all together. When we look at all the evidence, the reality of Shoah, the specific Greek and Hebrew vocabulary, the two powers debate, the political threat against Rome, and the theology of the eighth day, we have our answer. The picture is clear. Thomas was not gasping in surprise. He wasn't having a jump scare over a dropped phone. He was deliberately, carefully, and breathlessly confessing that the God of Israel was standing right in front of him, bearing the scars of his love.

[40:32]

And that leaves you, the listener, with one thought to carry into your reading this week. What is that? When you open this text at home, remember that Jesus never softens Thomas' claim. No, he doesn't back away from the title at all. He really doesn't. The story is brilliantly designed to force you, the reader, into the exact same locked room, into the exact same corner Thomas was in. It makes it personal. It asks you to look at the wounds, to weigh all the historical evidence we've discussed today, and to answer the question that Jesus leaves hanging in the air, who do you say that I am? We'll see you next time.