One of the Clearest (and Earliest) Summaries of Early Christian Beliefs
Since I am currently writing a book on Christianity in the second century, my research has been focused on some of our earliest patristic texts. These texts are a treasure trove of fascinating statements and declarations that provide tremendous insight on what early Christians really believed.
Some of my prior posts on this theme include discussions of the persecution of Christians, early Christian sexual ethics, the divinity of Jesus, and the doctrine of substitutionary atonement.
Most recently, I came across an amazing paragraph in one of our earliest Christian apologies. Aristides, a converted Athenian philosopher, wrote an apology to emperor Hadrian around 125 A.D. As such, … Continue reading...
Did the Earliest Christians Really Believe in Substitutionary Atonement (and Even Imputation)? One Important Example
In a prior article (here), I explored how the second-century work the Epistle to Diognetus clearly affirmed the full divinity of Jesus–a doctrine that some say did not come around until the fourth century. I continue this theme by exploring yet another doctrine that some suggest is a late invention: substitutionary atonement.
The average internet-level narrative goes something like this: the earliest Christians had no clear understanding for why Jesus died on the cross and what it accomplished. The idea of a substitutionary atonement is a late invention designed to retroactively explain the (otherwise embarrassing) death of Jesus. In fact, it was not until Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo … Continue reading...
Did the Earliest Christians Really Think Jesus Was God? One Important Example
One of the most common critiques of Christianity is that some of its major tenets are late inventions. Core Christian doctrines, we are told, were never believed in the earliest phases of the church but were developed only at a later time period. Orthodoxy, therefore, was not early but late.
The most obvious example of a doctrine that was purportedly added later (we will cover another such doctrine in a future post) is the divinity of Jesus. The popular internet-level narrative goes like this: Jesus was not God, nor did he claim to be God. He was just an ordinary man. At a later point, his followers began to … 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).