Category: Gospels

Did Jesus Really “Become” God? My Review of Bart Ehrman’s Latest

Last week I mentioned that I have begun a new series on my blog responding to Bart Erhman’s latest volume, How Jesus Became God–The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (HarperOne, 2014). For the prior posts in this series, see here and here. Future posts will come over the next few weeks.

Many of the posts in this series (though not all) will be drawn from my full-length review of Ehrman’s book.  I have just learned that Reformation 21 has now posted that full review here.

The review covers a lot of ground, ranging from early Christian views of semi-divine figures, to whether Jesus claimed to be …

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Did the Earliest Christians Think Jesus Was an Angel? A Response to Bart Ehrman (Part 2)

Note:  This is the second installment of a series of blog posts reviewing Bart Ehrman’s new book, How Jesus Became God–The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (HarperOne, 2014). For the prior post see here.

Ehrman’s core argument is that Jesus was a mere man who gradually, over time, came to be regarded as more and more divine, until he was ultimately (in the fourth century) regarded as the God of the universe.  He states, “It will become clear in the following chapters that Jesus was not originally considered to be God in any sense at all, and that he eventually became divine for his followers in some …

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Talking Bart Erhman Tonight with Greg Koukl on Stand to Reason

There has been a lot of buzz about Bart Ehrman’s latest volume, How Jesus Became God (HarperOne, 2014).  Ehrman tackles the issue of early Christology, in particular how early Christians came to regard Jesus as divine.

Not surprisingly, Erhman rejects the traditional Christian view on the subject, namely that Jesus was regarded as God because he claimed to be God and was, in fact, God.  Ehrman offers an alternative thesis:

It will become clear in the following chapters that Jesus was not originally considered to be God in any sense at all, and that he eventually became divine for his followers in some sense before he came to be thought

…

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Bible Secrets Revealed: The Complete Series

For the last few months I have been working through the various episodes of Bible Secrets Revealed from the History Channel.  This series challenges a number of popular beliefs and conceptions that people hold about the Bible, and raises questions about the integrity and reliability of the Scriptures.  In each of the posts below, I summarize the main content of each episode and offer an evaluation and response.

This entire series has reminded me of two critical truths:

1. Our popular culture is prone to distort and misrepresent the teachings of the Bible. I was struck again by how sensationalistic and misleading popular-level programming can actually be when it …

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