without any external help. As Hauerwas puts it, “the attempt to establish grounds more determinative than Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection for why we should believe in him results in idolatry. If one needs a standard of truth to insure that Jesus is the Messiah, then one ought to worship that standard of truth, not Jesus.”1 However, for Jesus to claim divine status openly would be entirely unacceptable to most of his audience, so—like a good rabbi—he answers the question with a question. What