The Divine Identity of Jesus in Mark's Gospel (Director's Cut)

Does the Gospel of Mark say Jesus is God?

Many Christians will sooner or later hear the skeptics’ claim that it is strictly in John’s Gospel where Jesus is presented as God, not in the Synoptic tradition. In the past decade, Catholic theologians have looked to counter the skeptic's claim, arguing that the Synoptic Gospels do make the claim, but doing so in a Jewish manner of understanding. Catholic Theologian Brant Pitre, in many respects, has led the charge to counter the narrative of the Calming of the Storm as a divine claim in a Jewish context, asserting, “the accounts of the stilling of the storm reveal Jesus’s identity as the LORD, the Creator of the universe. And that happens in all three Synoptic Gospels. To be sure, Jesus reveals his divine identity in a very Jewish way.”¹

Naturally, Pitre’s premise begs the question: Are all so-called claims of divinity made by Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels as veiled as this example? Or does Jesus, in the Gospel of Mark, which the consensus of biblical scholars believes to be the earliest written gospel, make a divine claim on His identity that has a more explicit understanding, as claimed by the author of the gospel and understood by his intended audience?

If the inquirer is seeking how Mark and his audience understood Jesus' identity, then the trial narrative in Mark’s gospel before the High Priest is a good place to begin. The narrative raises the question of the claims about Jesus’ identity in light of how Mark and his audience understand Jesus’ references to Daniel 7:13 and Ps. 110.

E.P. Sanders explains:

When Jesus was tried before the high priest, he was charged: ‘Tell us if you are the Messiah [christos]. The Son of the Blessed’ (Mark 14:61 & parr.) According to Mark he answered ‘yes’, according to Luke he evaded the question, while according to Matthew he said, in effect, ‘no’ (Mark 14:62; Luke 22:67f; Matt. 26:64). Again he immediately referred to the Son of Man.²

Sanders continues by adding that we cannot know Jesus’ understanding of His identity with any certainty because of “little direct evidence; only Mark has ‘yes’ in response to a direct question.”³ It’s important to reiterate within the discipline of biblical exegesis, in light of the point Sanders is making a mistake in his understanding of Jesus’ own thoughts of His identity, the inquirer is specifically looking for who Mark is claiming Jesus to be in His identity. Biblical scholar Michael J. Gorman puts it this way, “One issue for beginning exegetes, especially when reading biblical narratives, is the failure to distinguish between the historical context of the text’s author and audience, on the one hand, and the narrative context of the characters in the story, on the other. It is the former, not the latter, that we mean when we discuss the historical context of a text.”⁴

It must be said at this point that there is an irony that exists with the last paragraph’s explanation of the proper way to interpret the Bible and Mark’s claims. It’s important to note that when making this argument, skeptics will shift the goal posts from “the gospels do not claim” to “the historical Jesus didn’t claim.”

Psalm 110 & Marcan Priority

The key to understanding how Mark and his audience understand Jesus' identity hinges on Psalm 110. The quotation from Daniel 7:13 refers more to an eschatological understanding of the Messiah's identity, but it’s only one part of that identity according to Mark. The importance of understanding the context of what is being claimed by Mark culminates in the trial before the High Priest in Mark 14:53-65, which shows how both Mark and his audience interpret Jesus’ reference to Ps. 110.

The analysis of Ps. 110 becomes clearer with Marcan priority, particularly regarding how the Gospel of Matthew incorporates the trial narrative for its audience. If Marcan priority holds and serves as the foundation for the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew becomes crucial for understanding Ps. 110 in its Jewish context during the trial narrative.

Biblical scholars generally conclude that Mark’s Gospel was the first to be written for several key reasons, though strong arguments remain for the traditional view that Matthew’s Gospel was the first. The argument for Matthean priority rests largely on the tradition argument, drawing on sources such as Augustine’s Harmony of the Gospels. Matthean priority argues against proponents of Marcan priority, claiming that Mark’s gospel is a shorter version of Matthew’s prose called an epitome. However, some of the reasons given by scholars to support Marcan priority, and by no means exhaustive here, are that the gospel of Mark is a shorter, less detailed gospel containing unique parts and meant to be used as source material. Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin explains a “striking way in which Mark does not look like an epitome of Matthew is the fact that the individual pericopes in Mark don’t tend to be shorter than the parallels in Matthew. Instead, they’re longer. Sometimes much longer.”⁵

The consensus for Mark’s audience is Gentiles in Rome. Scott Hahan explains that there are several things that tip us off to the fact:

1. Mark regularly explains Jewish customs

2. Translate Aramaic phrases and words

3. Latinizes terminology instead of using Greek

4. The text culminates with a Roman soldier pronouncing Jesus, “the Son of God.” (15:39)⁶

The dating of the text is often cited by scholars as around 70 A.D., prior to the Roman destruction of the temple. Some scholars place the date earlier, in the 60s A.D. The likely date, operating under the presumption of Marcan priority and pointing to the Acts texts, which never describe the deaths of Peter and Paul, is the early 60s A.D. for the composition of Mark’s gospel.

Who is the identity of David’s Lord in Mark 12:35-37?

The quotation of Ps. 110 by Jesus during the trial narrative does not exist in a vacuum. It’s important for beginner exegetes to note that all chapter numbers and versions are much later additions to the biblical texts. A correct application of contextual analysis considers the book's full context and what is being claimed in the surrounding passages of the selected passage for biblical interpretation. Two chapters before the trial narrative in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, Mark has Jesus interpret Ps. 110 by posing a question about David vv. 12:35-37:

³⁵ And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? ³⁶ David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared,

“ ‘The Lord said to my Lord,

“Sit at my right hand,

until I put your enemies under your feet.” ’

³⁷ David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?” And the great throng heard him gladly.⁷

Jesus’ explanation before a great crowd in Mark’s Gospel has puzzled many throughout the years of biblical interpretation. Jesus’ question is left open-ended, which some scholars speculate is evidence of Jesus’ authentic historic interpretation of Ps. 110. David M. Hay explains, “But one essential feature of the pericope makes its historicity highly probable. In the Marcan form, the words attributed to Jesus here raise but do not distinctly answer the question about the applicability of the title “son of David” to the Messiah. It is difficult to imagine any of the evangelists (or any other early Christian) creating such a logion; hence it is most reasonably credited to Jesus himself.”⁸

The covenant promises to King David in the Old Testament, and reiterated in the prophetic literature, is key to understanding who Jesus is, as he simultaneously claims to be the Messiah and Divine, citing both Daniel and the Psalms. Biblical scholars of the more skeptical persuasion have argued in the past that Jesus rejects the Davidic identity through his question about David’s Lord. The question, though, is a Jewish rhetorical device meant to invite the listener to figure out the answer.⁹

Brant Pitre explains Jesus’ synagogue teaching narrative on the identity of David’s Lord is, “The third episode in which Jesus uses riddle-like questions and allusions to Jewish Scripture to both reveal and conceal his divinity also happens to be the only passage in the Four Gospels in which Jesus explicitly describes the figure of ‘the messiah” (ho christos).¹⁰

An outline of the narrative sequence for Mk. 12: 35-40:

I.               The importance of setting in the Temple in Jerusalem; the proposed question by Jesus. (v. 35)

II.              Jesus’ exegetical interpretation (v. 36)

III.            The unresolved question from Jesus and the crowd reaction (v. 37)

IV.            The condemnation of the scribes (v. 38-40)

There is another point to consider when studying a proposed divine claim made by Jesus in the Synoptics, specifically in reference to Ps. 110 and how the author of Mark intends to use the Psalm. The Hebrew and Greek translations of Ps. 110 differ in language, and the Greek used by Mark is crucial to understanding the context of what Mark is claiming. For example, John Donahue and Daniel J Harrington explain the importance of the Greek for understanding the rhetorical device by Mark, “In the Greek Bible tradition the divine name “Yhwh” is customarily rendered as “Lord” (kyrios), as is the title accorded to the king (kyrios = Hebrew ʾadonaî). So, in the Greek version “the Lord” (God) speaks to “my lord” (the king). But if David wrote the psalm, who then is “my lord” to David?”¹¹

Pitre also notes the importance of the differences between the OG and MT translations of Ps. 110. The difference between the two texts is extremely important. There is good evidence, as explained above, that this is authentic exegesis from Jesus Himself, but it’s important to reiterate what Gorman is claiming here: what is Mark claiming, and how does his audience understand it? Pitre cites Frank Hossfeld and Eric Zenger's work Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible as It Was at the Start of the Common Era:

“I have borne/begotten you” [Ps 110:3] (as in Ps 2:7); that form is even given in numerous manuscripts. This reading thus proclaims the enthronement as divine begetting or birth from the dawn. This formulation was evidently too mythical for the hand responsible for the [Masoretic] text we now have, and it was altered.”¹²

The rhetorical question posed by Jesus in Mark’s gospel infers the answer that the audience knows is being claimed by the question itself: “How is the Lord the son of David?” Donahue and Harrington explain further, “In the Markan context, the idea is that neither 'Son of David' nor 'Messiah’ adequately expresses the real identity of Jesus. He is more than David’s son and more than the messiah of Jewish expectations. In fact, Jesus deserves to share the title kyrios with God.”¹³ Hay suggests it is essential to discuss the nuance between sharing the title kyrios, claiming to be divine, and Jesus' claim that He is YHWH.

Why suggest a nuance is needed? Biblical scholarship stemming from the 19th through the 20th century consensus largely ignored the pericope of Jesus’ question who is David’s Lord (Mk. 12:35-37) because the claim is one greater than man. In the biblical scholarship consensus—maybe we should call it groupthink—such a claim must be a creation of the early church and not from the historical Jesus, Himself. The irony is that Hay points out the question is never answered, and, as Pitre notes, this is because it is reminiscent of the Jewish riddle found in the Israelite Wisdom Literature. The question contextually indicates authenticity from Jesus.

Again, the purpose of this thesis is to establish what Mark is claiming and what his audience is receiving about who Jesus of Nazareth is. Gerd Lüdemann, as Pitre notes, argues that Mark’s development of the question is “…formed by a community…”¹⁴ The consensus argument is largely a creation of Lutheran theologian and exegete Rudolph Bultmann. Bultmann and the boys, as I like to call them, especially in light of what Hay and Pitre write, are engaging in an implied admission by silence—they ignore it because Mark claims Jesus is divine.

The debate between long-standing Biblical skeptics comes to a head during a Q&A featuring Bart Ehrman, who stumbles over the question of Jesus’ divinity raised by none other than Catholic Theologian Brant Pitre, challenging Ehrman’s skepticism, pivoting to the trial narrative in Mark 14:53-65. The search for an answer to Mark’s claim on Jesus’ identity rests on the question: why was Jesus crucified?

Brant Pitre delivers a magnificent development of what I presume is an early formulation of his thesis in his book Jesus and Divine Christology. One apparent issue with Pitre’s question in the video, as Hay notes, is that it is not representative of biblical or Christian literature of the period. Ps. 110 is generally only quoted by its first and fourth verses. Pitre’s question is a later-developed understanding of Ps. 110, originating with St. Justin Martyr, who interprets Ps. 110:3 as applying to Jesus’ preexistence. Hay notes, “Christian literature before Justin Martyr presents seven partial or complete quotations of Ps. 110:1…and three quotations of Ps. 110:4.”¹⁵

The most problematic point of Brant Pitre’s questioning of Bart Ehrman is noted by Hay, who explains, “One of the most remarkable features of Christian use of Ps. 110 in the NT period is that its third verse is never explicitly cited. From Justin onward, however, it is often appealed to as testimony to Christ’s divinity.”¹⁶ Pitre does mention Ps. 110:3 a handful of times in his book; however, he develops his thesis fully away from hinging on that claim alone.

Private vs. Public Revelation of Identity

There is an important distinction Hay overlooks in his thesis on Ps. 110 in Early Christianity. The biblical literature within the Synoptic tradition is representative of the identification of Jesus with the LORD—meaning YHWH. There is a distinction within the Synoptic Gospels between the private revelation of Jesus’ identity to the disciples and its public revelation with Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, marking the start of what Christians now call Holy Week. Pope Benedict XVI’s detailed analysis of Jesus’ messianic identity reveals something of a pedagogical development within the narrative of the Synoptic Gospels. The understanding of Jesus’ messiahship as claimed in the Synoptic Gospels must be read in the context of what Jesus Himself claimed is meant by the office and anointing. Pope Benedict XVI examines how Peter, in the Gospel of Mark, offers a political understanding of the Messiah that Jesus rejects. Pope Benedict explains:

“Peter’s simple confession of Jesus’ Messiahship as transmitted by Mark is doubtless an accurate record of the historical moment; for, he continues, we are still dealing here with a purely “Jewish” confession that saw Jesus as a political Messiah in accordance with the ideas of the time. Only the Markan account, he argues, is logically consistent, because only a political messianism would explain Peter’s protest against the prophecy of the Passion, a protest that Jesus sharply rejects, as once he rejected Satan’s offer of lordship over the world: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men” (Mk 8:33). This brusque rebuff, says Grelot, makes sense only if it applies also to the confession that went before, and declares this too to be false.”¹⁷

Jesus, within the parameters of his inner circle, takes on the identity of David’s Son, the Davidic King, the one who will fulfill the covenant given to King David:

¹⁵ but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. ¹⁶ And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’¹⁸

What is interesting about the development of Jesus’ identity that continues throughout the Marcan text? Peter’s confession and Jesus telling him to keep quiet is what biblical scholars refer to as the Messianic Secret. The Jewish Study Bible explains, in the context of Saul's anointing, that “must be kept secret because of the Philistines.”¹⁹ Furthermore, the anointing of David is done in secret, out of King Saul's knowledge. Bar-Efrat explains that the context of the passage “in the presence of his brothers, without strangers, to keep the anointing secret.”²⁰ An analysis of First Samuel clearly indicates that, in the contextual understanding of scripture, the secret anointing in ancient Israel represents Jewish patrimony. The development that occurs within the confines of the Messianic Secret is the repudiation of a strictly political messianism within Jesus’ own followers.

Andrew McGovern explains a very important distinction that occurs within the Synoptics: “Many of the divine claims in the Synoptics that happen before Holy Week are meant only for the Apostles, but once we cross the threshold of the Entrance into Jerusalem, these instances get both more pronounced and more public.”²¹

Returning to the question posed by Jesus in Mk. 12:35, “How can the Scribes say that the Christ is the Son of David?” It is important to reiterate that, in Mark’s narrative, Jesus has, at this point, identified Himself as the Messiah within the context of the Jewish patrimony, in what scholars refer to as the Messianic Secret. Jesus, as explained by Pope Benedict, within the confines of private revelation among his disciples, has repudiated a strictly political concept of messiahship. It’s also important to remember that Mark’s gospel uses Jewish riddle literature to guide the listener's internalization of conclusions.

McGovern focuses on a detail missed by both Hay and Pitre—the private-versus-public distinction in the revelation of Jesus’ identity. By highlighting this distinction, the revelation of Jesus’ identity must be pushed back to the Entry into Jerusalem. McGovern’s article focuses on Matthew’s treatment of the Jerusalem entry notes “Son of David” references. Mark’s gospel also ties into the Davidic references, “Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come.”²²

The entire setting of the Entry into Jerusalem in the Synoptic tradition is framed by Psalm 118:

22 The stone which the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone.

23 This is the LORD’S doing;

it is marvelous in our eyes.

24 This is the day which the LORD has made;

let us rejoice and be glad in it.

25  Save us, we beg you, O LORD!

O LORD, we beg you, give us success!

26 Blessed be he who enters in the name of the LORD!

We bless you from the house of the LORD.

27 The LORD is God,

and he has given us light.

Bind the festal procession with branches,

up to the horns of the altar! ²³

There are a few striking features of comparison between the Psalm and Mark’s entry narrative about God, YHWH.

1. The crowd shouting “Hosanna” is a reference to Ps. 118:25: “Save us.”

2. The crowd was also shouting “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, " a reference to v. 26

3. The Procession of Jesus and the reference to the festal procession with branches v. 27.

The procession of the Catholic priest at the beginning of Mass, who stands in Persona Christi, is a public work among the faithful, revealing the LORD in the Liturgy of the Word and Eucharist to support the faithful’s mission on earth. After the entry into Jerusalem, Mark’s gospel presents Jesus teaching in the temple, where He continues to publicly reveal Himself to the crowds, with reference to Ps. 118.

Have you not read this Scripture:

‘The very stone which the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;

11 this was the Lord’s doing,

and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

12 And they tried to arrest him, but feared the multitude, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them; so they left him and went away. ²⁴

In my estimation, Pitre’s minimizing of the cleansing of the temple, among other testimonies about the temple, being an important factor which precipitated the blasphemy charge against Jesus, shouldn’t be understated in the Passion narrative. Pope Benedict XVI makes a fantastic connection between the use of Psalm 118, what it meant to Israel’s history, and its religious traditions:

This process of appropriation and reinterpretation, which begins with Jesus’ praying of the Psalms, is a typical illustration of the unity of the two Testaments, as taught to us by Jesus. When he prays, he is completely in union with Israel, and yet he is Israel in a new way: the old Passover now appears as a great foreshadowing. The new Passover, though, is Jesus himself, and the true “liberation” is taking place now, through his love that embraces all mankind.²⁵

This action, as we have seen, is in profound continuity with God’s primordial will, and at the same time it marks the decisive turning point in the history of religions, a turning point that becomes a reality on the Cross. It was this action—the cleansing of the Temple—that contributed significantly to Jesus’ condemnation to death on the Cross, thereby fulfilling his prophecy and heralding the new worship.²⁶

The Trial Before the Sanhedrin & Blasphemy.

No doubt Pitre understands that, when examining the gospels, reliance on Ps. 110:3 will not be convincing to those who employ the historical-critical method. There is a pivot in his thesis toward a focus on the blasphemy charge brought by what Mark simply describes as the high priest. What is important is that through the Synoptic tradition, and in particular Mark’s gospel, the blasphemy charge is not unique to the trial before the Sanhedrin.

The search for Mark’s claim about the identity of who Jesus is may rest on the very question—Why was Jesus crucified? The most popular theory among biblical scholars is that of crimes against the temple. It must be emphasized and put to rest that this theory has no evidence within any of the gospel texts. There is not one verse that charges Jesus with crimes against the temple, but rather all evidence of the primary source material suggests blasphemy was the charge. Pitre explains, “It is difficult to overemphasize the fact that there is no positive evidence Jesus was charged with any crime in relation to the temple incident.”²⁷

In fact, the charge of blasphemy goes back to the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. In chapter two of Mark’s gospel, vv. In 1-12, we find Jesus in the town of Capernaum, reported to be at home with a large crowd gathered around Him in public while He preached. The narrative pericope is preceded by an exorcism and several healings, so in this particular narrative, a paralytic is found to be too far away from Jesus. The friends of the paralytic remove the roof of the house and lower their friend to be healed by Jesus. Jesus, moved by the act of faith, v. 5, says, "Child, your sins are forgiven.” The scribes' response is automatic in the following verse 7: “Why does this man speak like this? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

Now this raises a question for the biblical exegete using literary criticism, given what we now know about Jewish riddles—is Mark using a Jewish riddle within the narrative pericope for his audience to wrestle with the answer?

The charge of blasphemy is essential to understanding Jesus’ claims in the Gospel of Mark. All of the public revelations written in Mark on the identity of who he claims Jesus to be are adjudicated through the question posed by the high priest, Jesus’ answer, and the high priest’s reaction and charge of blasphemy.

An Outline of the Narrative Sequence for Mk 14:53-64

I. The Setting and the witness, Peter. (vv. 53-54)

II. The False Testimony against Jesus with no evidence or charges. (vv. 55-59)

III. The high priest’s direct question to Jesus about the identity claim. (vv. 60-61)

IV. Jesus’ answer “I am;” with quoting Daniel 7:13 and Ps. 110:1 (v. 62)

V. The high priest's reaction and blasphemy charge (vv. 63-64)

The importance of the charge of blasphemy with whom Mark claims Jesus to be cannot be understated; it is essential for understanding Jesus’ answer—it is the adjudicatory moment of Mark’s gospel. Mark’s claim lends historical credence to any and all blasphemy charges leveled against Jesus in the Gospel of John; furthermore, it bridges the gap between the Synoptic and Johannine traditions. It is a sentiment that is expressed by historical-critical exegete Raymond Brown in his work Gospel According to John:

We also mention the possibility that John is historically correct in showing that the Jewish authorities took umbrage at Jesus’ claims long before that Sanhedrin trial when, on the night before Jesus’ death, another egō eimi (Mark xiv 62) provoked the high priest to cry blasphemy and call for death.²⁸

The contextual understanding is important for grasping what the blasphemy charge implied in 1st-century Judaism. In fact, taking a look at James Hastings et al’s definition of its understanding prior to Bultmann and the boys’ reexamination of the New Testament, the biblical and contextual understanding of the blasphemy charge on Jesus is understood exactly the way Brant Pitre understands it:

One of the most frequent of the charges brought by the Jews against Jesus was that of blasphemy, and when we inquire into the meaning of the accusation, we find that it was the application to Himself of Divine attributes and prerogatives (Mk 2:7 = Mt 9:3, Mk 14:64 = Mt 26:65, Jn 10:33, 36).²⁹

The blasphemy charge is firmly rooted in the notion of claiming what belongs to God—thus making one equal to God. Mark’s gospel, from the early pages with the healing of the paralytic narrative, in which Jesus takes on the authority to forgive sins, clearly shows a Jesus claiming what belongs to God alone.

It’s important to reiterate that Mark’s gospel firmly establishes Jesus as a divine Messiah figure—but also one who takes up the space unique to YHWH. A thematic analysis of the text, no doubt, points to a Marcan crucified Jesus not because He claimed to be the Messiah, not because He claimed to be a divine being greater than David, but precisely because He claimed to take what belongs to God alone—claiming that space in front of the Jewish religious leadership—a leadership that applied the Leviticus condemnation of death for a blasphemy charge instructed in Lev. 24:16.

1. Brant Pitre, The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ ( New York: Penguin Random House, 2016), 126.

2. E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (New York: Penguin Group, 1993), 242.

3. Ibid.

4. Michael J. Gorman, Elements of Biblical Exegesis: A Basic Guide for Students and Ministers, Third Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020), 79.

5. Jimmy Akin, “Which Gospel Was Written First,” Catholic Answers, November 24, 2025, https://www.catholic.com/audio/tjap/which-gospel-was-written-first.

6. Scott Hahn, The Ignatius Study Bible (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2024), 1783.

7. Mk. 12: 35-37, ESV-CE

8. David M Hay, Glory at the Right Hand: Psalm 110 in Early Christianity (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1989), 110.

9. Brant Pitre, Jesus and Divine Christology (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2024), 149.

10. Brant Pitre, Jesus and Divine Christology, 148.

11. John R. Donahue and Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Mark, ed. Daniel J. Harrington, vol. 2, Sacra Pagina Series (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002), 359.

12. Brant Pitre, Jesus and Divine Christology, 153-154.

13. John R. Donahue and Daniel J. Harrington, 360

14. Brant Pitre, Jesus and Divine Christology, 157-58

15. Hay, 35.

16. Hay, 49.

17. Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007, 294-297

18. 2 Sa 7:15–16, ESV-CE.

19. Shimon Bar-Efrat, The Jewish Study Bible: Second Edition, ed. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 564

20. Ibid, 577.

21. Andrew McGovern, “The Divine Identity of Christ Revealed in Holy Week,” The Divine Identity of Christ Revealed In Holy Week, March 27, 2026, https://www.missiodeicatholic.org/p/the-divine-identity-of-christ-revealed.

22. Mk. 11:10 ESV-CE.

23. Ps 118:22–27. RSV-CE.

24. Mk. 12-10-12, RSV-CE.

25. Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth: Part Two: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 147.

26. Ibid, 148.

27. Brant Pitre, Jesus and Divine Christology, 249.

28. Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John, vol. 1, (Anchor Yale Bible Commentary: New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966–1970), 368.

29. James Hastings et al., Dictionary of the Bible (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909), 101.