How Jesus Became God
Ratings5
Average rating3.4
15
Ratings5
Average rating3.4
New York Times bestselling author and Bible expert Bart Ehrman reveals how Jesus’s divinity became dogma in the first few centuries of the early church.
The claim at the heart of the Christian faith is that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, God. But this is not what the original disciples believed during Jesus’s lifetime—and it is not what Jesus claimed about himself. How Jesus Became God tells the story of an idea that shaped Christianity, and of the evolution of a belief that looked very different in the fourth century than it did in the first.
A master explainer of Christian history, texts, and traditions, Ehrman reveals how an apocalyptic prophet from the backwaters of rural Galilee crucified for crimes against the state came to be thought of as equal with the one God Almighty, Creator of all things. But how did he move from being a Jewish prophet to being God? In a book that took eight years to research and write, Ehrman sketches Jesus’s transformation from a human prophet to the Son of God exalted to divine status at his resurrection. Only when some of Jesus’s followers had visions of him after his death—alive again—did anyone come to think that he, the prophet from Galilee, had become God. And what they meant by that was not at all what people mean today.
Written for secular historians of religion and believers alike, How Jesus Became God will engage anyone interested in the historical developments that led to the affirmation at the heart of Christianity: Jesus was, and is, God.
[(source)][1]
[1]: http://www.amazon.com/How-Jesus-Became-God-Exaltation/dp/0061778184/ref=dp_return_2?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books
Reviews with the most likes.
Interesting read, but tedious. The author uses textual authority to establish various traditions for “how Jesus became God” – whether incarnation Christology, exaltation Christology, or various heterodox approaches. The bottom line, though, is that Jesus wasn't claimed to be God during his lifetime, and only after the “resurrection” did such claims begin to be made on his behalf. The so-called resurrection is also examined, noting in particular that it would have been highly unusual for the Romans to allow burial of a crucifixion victim, since degradation of the body on the cross was part of the point–a warning to others. I wish Ehrman would take his argument a step further to explain why the leaders of the early church would have invented the resurrection story on which the whole thing hinges.
