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 … Continue reading...
How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?
Recently I have been doing some work on the Gospel of John and first-century Jewish monotheism. Anyone who explores the high Christology in John is forced to ask how it would have (or could have) emerged within a monotheistic context. How could early Jews have believed in the one true God of Israel, and also have believed that Jesus was divine?
There are many scholarly works that prove helpful in this discussion, but one of the best is the collection of essays by my doktorvater, Larry Hurtado, in his wonderful book, How on Earth Did Jesus Become God? (Eerdmans, 2005).