Religion
Related: About this forumIf Jesus never called himself God, how did he become one?
Fascinating....
When Bart Ehrman was a young Evangelical Christian, he wanted to know how God became a man, but now, as an agnostic and historian of early Christianity, he wants to know how a man became God.
When and why did Jesus' followers start saying "Jesus as God" and what did they mean by that? His new book is called How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee.
"In this book I actually do not take a stand on either the question of whether Jesus was God, or whether he was actually raised from the dead," Ehrman tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I leave open both questions because those are theological questions based on religious beliefs and I'm writing the book as a historian."
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hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)The councils interpreted it to mean he was God.
mr blur
(7,753 posts)
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)
A selfie!
Walk away
(9,494 posts)
riqster
(13,986 posts)
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)...mysteriously became not-alive.
TM99
(8,352 posts)The theological dogma that was finally agreed upon by the early Church occurred over a rather long period of time. There were the Ante-Nicene councils, the First Council of Nicene and six more before the Second Council of Nicene. These competing theologies were not dealt with by suppression via violence. Valentinus, a Gnostic, nearly gained the votes to become Bishop of Rome. The Non-Trinitarians that were rejected by the First Council were not slaughtered. They were excommunicated. Their bishops lost the authority of valid Apostolic Succession.
During the first roughly thousand years that Dr. Ehrman is writing about there were heated discussions and debates about the emerging theology of the Church. The violence that you are thinking of with regards to such groups as the Cathars and Waldensians occurred in the Middle Ages long after this dogma was decided upon in rather heated but non-violent gatherings of Bishops. This matter of Jesus as God and man was well before the 12th through 16th centuries inquisitions and state sanctioned massacres.
I am hardly condoning such atrocities, but it is simply false to say that this matter of person-hood/God-head was decided by violence and whole-sale death.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)but that the factions themselves were killed off by political and physical suppression. Those factions that rejected the divinity of Christ or rejected that he was connected to the Hebrew god posed a threat to the trinitarian faction, and were dealt with accordingly: slander, libel, ostracism, and in some cases violence.
TM99
(8,352 posts)Because every Christian faction who thought he was not-God...
...mysteriously became not-alive.
"Every" "became not-alive" does imply whole slaughtering.
Slander, libel, ostracism, etc. is not violence, even if that may be a bit hyperbolic historically speaking.
struggle4progress
(126,683 posts)What, for example, really became of Spartacus, Edward V of England, Roanoke Colony, Henry Hudson, the crew of the Mary Celeste, the Flannan Isle lighthouse keepers, Ambrose Bierce, Amelia Earhart, the hundred thousand French and Germans who vanished near Doauamont in 1916, Glenn Miller, Raoul Wallenburg, Jimmy Hoffa, D. B. Cooper, or Madalyn Murray O'Hair? Why can't anyone tell us exactly where the apostle Silas was at that time of these disappearances? Could the US government be hiding evidence, that could resolve these and many other related cases, in a secret fortified bunker near Roswell?
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)Go home. You're drunk.
struggle4progress
(126,683 posts)So mysteriously not-alive today! It just boggles the mind!
TM99
(8,352 posts)Most of those groups simply dwindled in numbers. Apostolic succession was not recognized so why become a new member of a sect that would have no authority? The Ebionites were still found in small numbers around 1000 CE.
The Marcionites and Gnostics were similar in theology with some unique differences. Both groups as sects also dwindled in numbers though their influence and thinking resurfaces numerous times in the west since. Marcionism was particularly critical of the wrathful God of the Old Testament. Hell we see that idea present in most modern anti-theism and liberal Christianity.
Gnosticism is an important aspect of the Qabalah, Hermeticism, the Neo-Platonic academies of Florence in the Renaissance. It was very influential for instance on the writings of Marsilio Ficino & Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.
TM99
(8,352 posts)Most know Ehrman only through his more popular works like Misquoting Jesus and Truth & Fiction in the Da Vinci Code.
I particularly enjoyed his more textbook like works on the Apostolic Fathers, textual criticism of the New Testament, and his post New Testament readers.
This should be quite interesting. 
LostOne4Ever
(9,767 posts)I would think that the tradition of the time to proclaim many of a nation's leaders gods had something to do with it.
Checking link...
BOOYAH! That's exactly what the author said~!
[div class="excerpt" style="margin-left:1em; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius:0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]Right at the same time that Christians were calling Jesus "God" is exactly when Romans started calling their emperors "God." So these Christians were not doing this in a vacuum; they were actually doing it in a context. I don't think this could be an accident that this is a point at which the emperors are being called "God." So by calling Jesus "God," in fact, it was a competition between your God, the emperor, and our God, Jesus.
struggle4progress
(126,683 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)John 10 : 30
"I and the Father are one.”
John 8 : 58
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
John 14 : 9
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?"
There are more but it is not a glib discussion.
pokerfan
(27,677 posts)You do find Jesus calling himself God in the Gospel of John, our last Gospel. Jesus says things like: Before Abraham was, I am, and I and the father are one, and if you've seen me, you've see the father.
These are all statements that you find only in the Gospel of John, and that's striking because we have earlier Gospels, and we have the writings of Paul, and in none of them is there any indication that Jesus said such things about him. I think it's completely implausible that Matthew, Mark and Luke would not mention that Jesus called himself God if that's what he was declaring about himself. That would be a rather important point to make.
So this is not an unusual view among scholars. It's simply the view that the Gospel of John is providing a theological understand of Jesus that is not what was historically accurate.
rug
(82,333 posts)It certainly is providing a specific theological understanding but I don't know what you mean by saying it is not "historically accurate". Which of the four Gospels do you think are historically accurate?
I was quoting the author.
rug
(82,333 posts)pokerfan
(27,677 posts)
Warpy
(114,655 posts)and the Roman way was to kick important people upstairs and worship them as gods. Paul also wrote the Roman misogyny into what had been an egalitarian religion. He also said faith was more important than good works, opening the door for all the subsequent monsters who said god was on their side as they committed massive crimes against humanity.
That's how it happened. Unfortunately, no one seems concerned about it and willing to do anything about it.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)The question of whether the central figure of a major religion actually, physically rose from the dead after being killed is absolutely one of historical and scientific fact. Whether he actually was god or not (however someone contrives to define that) is another matter, at least partially theological.
exboyfil
(18,371 posts)knowing whether Jesus actually rose from the dead. The Bible even indicates that an alternate explanation exists (Matt 28:13-14). Mark's description of post-resurrection was added later. The other three Gospels do not harmonize well describing post-resurrection (not to mention the crucifixion itself - what were Jesus' last words for example). Several events described at the time which should have been noted in other writings were not such as the darkness during the crucifixion, the resurrection of the saints from their graves, and the earthquake. These events merit such little interest that John does not even mention them, and the earthquake and the graves emptying were not mentioned by either Mark or Luke.
As far as scientific fact, by definition a single historical event that is not repeatable cannot be proven. All recognize that, if it happened, it would have to be a miracle. The Shroud of Turin is an interesting artifact, for example, that is the only thing even remotely testable about the resurrection. Its provenance to the 1st century cannot be proven, some scientific testing has demonstrated it is of middle ages manufacturer, and the actual shroud does not align with the description of the burial of Jesus from John (which mentions a separate cloth for the face).
Finally as always it comes down to faith. Without the resurrection not much of the New Testament holds together. Short of Christ returning you have no way to prove one way or the other. From a strictly historical perspective if you are going to make exceptional claims, you better have exceptional evidence. Such evidence does not exist for the resurrection.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)I'm not sure what "definition" you're going by, but the fact that an event happened only once and can't be repeated doesn't remove it from the realm of scientific or historical inquiry. Not remotely. The Big Bang happened only once, as far as our knowledge can extend, and we can't replicate it in a laboratory, but we have very strong evidence that it happened. Same for the meteor impact that exterminated the dinosaurs, and thousands of other things. That really smacks of the kind of creationist talking point that says that if you can't conduct an experiment in a laboratory to show something, that it's not science, in an attempt to discredit so-called "historical" sciences like geology and paleontology. That argument is completely bogus.
As far as knowing whether Jesus rose from the dead, that claim is in principle as amenable to historical inquiry as any other event. You look at records and accounts of the time when this was supposed to have happened and evaluate their reliability, balancing that against the likelihood of a violation of the way the world is known to work. If someone who had allegedly made enough of a name for themselves as the Bible says Jesus did really HAD come back to life after having been crucified and buried for several days, it would not be unreasonable to expect records of such an unusual event. Failure to find such records does not, of course, prove that it didn't happen, but it does bear on an evaluation of its likelihood, whether you call it a "miracle" or not. Ehrman certainly knows that all of that is possible, and has been done, so his excluding this event a priori from historical inquiry is really a matter of accomodationist politics in the religio-academic circles in which he moves. Similarly, the likelihood of the Hebrews' captivity and Exodus from Egypt can be tested by looking at Egyptian records from the time for any mention of it, and by searching the Sinai desert for archaeological evidence of thousands of people roaming around for 40 years. Failure to find any such, when they could reasonably be expected, would tell against those events actually occurring. Again, difficulty in finding enough evidence for a firm conclusion to be reached does not mean that a question is in principle outside of historical or scientific inquiry.
The Shroud of Turin isn't really a good example of something "testable" from the resurrection, any more than all of those fragments of the "true" cross that have cropped up through history.
exboyfil
(18,371 posts)The Shroud of Turin is the only thing remotely brought up that can tested to prove the validity of the resurrection. That is why I used it as an example. Absolutely no scientific evidence exists for the resurrection, but we would only expect to have something like the shroud for example to prove it. Our hypotheses regarding the origin of the universe continue to change over time. Even the most recent observation data has inconsistencies
http://www.nature.com/news/cosmologists-at-odds-over-mysterious-anomalies-in-data-from-early-universe-1.14368
I suspect the hypotheses we develop today will be further changed in 20 years.
The origin of life on earth is another example of a scientific event in which we will never know for certain what happened. What I think will happen is that we develop a credible potential process that was possible given the known conditions at the time. The evidence has just been obliterated over time. That does not mean we should not continue to look though.
We obviously have strong confirmation of a large impactor hitting the earth around the time of the dinosaur extinction. The worldwide finding of iridium in the K-T layer confirms this fact. Whether we know if it was the primary cause for dinosaur extinction is another question. I happen to think it was, and we may find sufficient evidence of the fact but we do not know for certain now.
Since the reports of Christ included only appearances with his closest followers, you have no way of ever proving historically the resurrection of Jesus. In fact it is probably wasting your time to even try to prove it one way or the other. Unlike a battle the resurrection will leave little or no archeological evidence. Much recorded history from should be considered suspect. Look at some of the accounts by Herodotus for example (women stand while urinating). I can't prove it was untrue, but it does seem unlikely. Scholars have found considerable problems with the accounts of Josephus who obviously had a vested interest in his statements. Even his statement about Jesus has been brought into question.
I agree with you that, if the numbers specified in Exodus had been in the desert 40 years, then we would have found evidence by now. I do think a smaller number could have wondered around for an extended period of time though. For example Herodotus reports that Cambyses' lost an army in the desert. Even with that knowledge it took 2,500 years to find it (that is if we actually found it which is in doubt given the discovery has not been peer reviewed). Did Cambyses lose an army?
MFM008
(20,042 posts)no one elses, Jesus was the son of God, not God made man. He does say 'my father and I are one and the same'... at least in the movie lol. He pretty much had permission to act for him.
