Conclusion:
The author uses a very good quote from Harris about why Jesus being referred to as theos in the NT is not the nail on which the faith in the deity of Christ hangs.
We have discussed the things he mentions before and I know why that isn’t necessarily true. I know that it is just as good of an argument to say that Jesus acted as God because He was God’s agent and so, of course, he would exercise divine functions (with the exception of creation).
I do think it is interesting that, in a lot of the discussed passages, theos or theou appears to either be the earliest reading or among earli-er readings or, in some manuscript families, the only reading. It would then seem that theos and theou are the originals. But I suppose one could argue that we just don’t know what the earliest reading actually is; and the earliest reading in one geographical area might be different from the earliest in another. Which is better? So that argument could go on ad infinitum.
I definitely gleaned some good things from this paper. I confess it is easy to read it and say that it seems to support what I already believed. It would be interesting if it was written by a unitarian. How would the perspective of the evidence change? 😉