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Sunday, October 19, 2014

Sunday Review: How Jesus Became God (book)

It all started with his supposed resurrection

By Morris Dean

The Nicene creed includes the affirmation that
I believe...in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds...one in Being with the Father.
That is, Jesus is believed to have always been God. There is some irony, then, in the title of Bart D. Ehrman's 2014 book, How Jesus Became God, which refers not to the fact of Jesus's being God, but to the belief. How did that belief come about?

The Christ worshiped today
is obviously a far cry from the historical Jesus of Nazareth, an itinerant apocalyptic preacher in the backwaters of rural Galilee who offended the authorities and was unceremoniously crucified for crimes against the state. Whatever he may have been in real life, Jesus had [with the First Council of Nicea, 325 C.E.] become fully God. [p. 352, concluding paragraph of  Chapter 9]
    In the epilogue following that conclusion, Ehrman acknowledges that there is a certain truth to New Testament scholar Martin Hengel's "famous claim that 'with regard to the early Church's Christology [understanding of Christ]...more happened in the first twenty years than in the entire later, centuries-long development of dogma.'" [pp. 370-371, emphasis mine] And Ehrman's book reflects this by devoting its first six chapters and much of its seventh to the how of Jesus's "becoming God" during those very early years following the execution of Jesus.
    The first two chapters examine historically the ways in which certain humans could already come to be considered divine in ancient Greece and Rome (Chapter 1) and in Judaism (Chapter 2). (There were quite a few ways, and this is very interesting reading, whether or not you care about Jesus's case.)
    The pivotal third chapter examines the question, "Did Jesus think he was God?" Ehrman cautions the reader that the canonical Gospels (Mark, Matthew & Luke, and John – in the order in which they were written, in Greek, by learned men who had never met Jesus and had little in common with him or his followers) were relying primarily on traditional oral accounts. From a close examination of these accounts, and of the Book of Acts (also written by "Luke") and the letters of Paul, as well as from his survey of the work of other scholars, Ehrman concludes that Jesus did not think that he was God.


The short answer to how Jesus came to be considered divine is that a few key individuals had powerful visions of Jesus after his death that they interpreted as his having come back to life, and they took this "appearance" as a sign – or a proof – that Jesus was, or had become, divine. Ehrman himself puts "appearance" in quotes; he doesn't believe that Jesus was resurrected or actually appeared to anyone. But he doesn't
take a stand on this issue of whether Jesus really appeared to people or whether their visions were hallucinations, so my case does not rise or fall depending on whether the visions were veridical or not. As an agnostic, I personally do not believe Jesus was raised from the dead and so I do not believe he "appeared" to anyone. But what I have to say about the disciples' visions are things I could have said just as easily back in the days when I was a firm believer. [p. 187]
Constantine I (306-337) converted to Christianity,
disavowed the divinity with which previous,
pagan emperors had been endowed
Chapters 8 & 9 are as fascinating as anything that came before. They discuss the further development of believers' widely diverging understandings of Christ over the early centuries following his death, during which an orthodox view emerged and heretical views were suppressed. As he always is, in book after book, Ehrman is careful to explain what he's talking about:
The stress within Christianity that there is a right view and lots of wrong views...was certainly in place in the second and third Christian centuries. By that time it had become exceedingly easy to castigate anyone as a "heretic" for holding to an alternative way of looking at God, and Christ, and salvation. Moreover, this salvation came only by having the correct understanding about God, Christ, salvation, and so on. For that reason, discerning right and wrong beliefs – ascertaining what was "orthodox" (right) and "heretical" (false) – became an obsession of many of the leaders of the early church.[p. 285]
Like a number of Ehrman's books that I have read, he candidly discusses his own evolution from firm believer to agnostic. The epilogue, for example, opens:
As I have been writing this book, I have come to realize that the history of my own personal theology is a mirror image of the history of the theology of the early church....Jesus went from being a potential (human) messiah to being the Son of God exalted to a divine status at his resurrection; to being a preexistent angelic being who came to earth incarnate as a man; to being the incarnation of the Word of God who existed before all time and through whom the world was created; to being God himself, equal with God the Father and always existent with him. My own personal beliefs about Jesus moved in precisely the opposite direction....The Christians exalted him to the divine realm in their theology, but in my opinion, he was, and always had been, a human. [pp. 353-354]
    A subtextual title for Ehrman's book might be How Jesus Became Human Again. That story all started with Ehrman's inability to believe any longer in Jesus's supposed resurrection. This reviewer is sympathetic.

Copyright © 2014 by Morris Dean

7 comments:

  1. How did a certain itinerant apocalyptic preacher in the backwaters of rural Galilee who offended the authorities and was unceremoniously crucified for crimes against the state come to be believed to be God? And how did the sense in which he was believed to be God evolve in the early years of Christianity?

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    1. Interesting how the majority of the writings the Romans had, bearing in mind they actually knew /crucified Jesus disappeared apart from the ones found in the possession of the church. All about control and rule by fear of the known and unknown me thinks!

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    1. Dean (and Sharon, if by "it" you meant the book and not my review), ANY book you choose to read by Bart Ehrman will be a good read and very informative. He is an extremely well-researched scholar, and he has a knack for clear, interesting communication. A particular book of his that I recommend is "Misquoting Jesus," which surveys the Bible's discrepancies and how they came about. His published books are listed at http://www.bartdehrman.com/books.htm. (In looking through the list, I discovered that there seem to be more of his books that I haven't read than that I have; I've got some more Ehrman reading of my own to do.)

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    2. Dean, our columnist Kyle Garza sent me a link to a debate on Youtube between Dr. Ehrman and Dr. James R. White, an evangelical Christian apologist, on the question of "misquoting Jesus." The debate took place (according to the notation on Youtube) on January 21, 2009.

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  3. I have not read the book, but based on the review, I do have some comments. As a Christian, I totally agree that Christianity has changed a lot over time, with different churches emerging all claiming to be right. Branches of Christianity have formed because of different interpretations of the Bible, etc. I actually address that in my most current blog post: http://makinglifeablisscomplete.blogspot.com/2014/10/you-arent-weird-but-your-beliefs-are_11.html
    As far as the other claims, I must take issue with them. Matthew was one of Jesus’ 12 disciples, and then confirmed an apostle after his resurrection. Mark was not one of the 12 disciples, as he was a teen during Christ’s ministry, but later in life he traveled with Paul and then Peter. Mark wrote his book under the direction of Peter, and was a believer in Christ. Luke was not one of the 12 disciples either, but he did travel with Paul and was a believer of Christ. John was one of the 12 disciples, and then one of the confirmed apostles.
    The biggest issue I take is that Christian belief evolved over time into thinking Jesus Christ was God. I can understand where some confusion may arise. In a way, no, Jesus isn’t God. He is the only begotten son of the Father, and still divine. He is separate from His Father. However, most Christians don’t believe that they are separate people, and I don’t think that is what you meant.
    Jesus Christ is Jehovah, who was prophesied in the Old Testament. He is the Messiah. It is true some people saw Jesus as you wrote, but Jesus had many followers who saw him perform miracles, listened to him teach, and they worshiped Him. He called himself the Son of God, and said that his father sent him to fulfill all righteousness and to provide the way to eternal life. Jesus never once said he was just a human, nor did he call himself merely a prophet. He was born to the virgin Mary, and did take on a mortal body in order to do his earthly ministry, but he was also always the son of God. He lived a perfect life, resisting temptation. He healed people of their physical ailments, and forgave sin. He provided a higher law to the ten commandments. He sacrificed his life at will for the benefit of mankind. He was resurrected and appeared to his disciples, and several others. He then ascended to Heaven to dwell on the right hand of his father once again.
    I will leave you with one passage from Matthew 16:
    13 When Jesus came into the coasts of Cæsarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
    14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.
    15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
    16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
    17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
    Jesus considered himself Christ, the son of the living God. Christ means ‘anointed’ in Greek and ‘Messiah’ in Hebrew.
    I don’t write this to argue or to put down your book at all. Believing in Christ is not easy, and can take a lot of soul-searching, study, and prayer. It takes life-long nourishment to maintain that conviction. I know that Jesus wasn’t just a human trying to change things and cause trouble. Through Him and because of Him, we can dwell with our Father in Heaven someday, as we are faithful. God bless.

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