< No. Consider this LORD, Lunatic, Liar argument.
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon and you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."From CS. Lewis in Mere Christianity
So he is either a:
1. Lunatic: Jesus was not the son of God, but he mistakenly believed that he was.
2. Liar: Jesus was not the son of God, and he knew it, but he said so anyway to deceive.
3. Lord: Jesus was the son of God, and thus spoke the truth.
>> “You left out (at least) one other possibility:
that Jesus' words and intentions were not accurately documented. Or perhaps they were, but weren't put in the Bible (or other published documents) for political reasons.”
< Well, C.S. Lewis’ argument relies on the accuracy of the gospels.
He’s attacking the position that a person agreeing to the gospel’s reliability (“I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher”) with the claim that Jesus was not God. The two cannot go together. On the other hand you’re attacking the person’s claim on accepting Jesus as a great moral teacher based on the reliability of the gospels. Lewis is not doing that here, therefore your forth possibility doesn’t apply.
Besides, even if the gospels were inaccurate, with many people following and calling Jesus LORD at that time, with many people being healed, with many scribes writing about him, and with many people dying for him, that would rule out the “merely a great moral teacher” concept. Certainly Jesus left a big mark in history.
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