How Jesus Became Christian
How Jesus Became Christian

Author: Barrie Wilson

Publisher: Vintage Canada

Published: 2010-07-16

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0307375846

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In How Jesus Became Christian, Barrie Wilson asks "How did a young rabbi become the god of a religion he wouldn’t recognize, one which was established through the use of calculated anti-Semitism?" Colourfully recreating the world of Jesus Christ, Wilson brings the answer to life by looking at the rivalry between the "Jesus movement," informed by the teachings of Matthew and adhering to Torah worship, and the "Christ movement," headed by Paul, which shunned Torah. Wilson suggests that Paul’s movement was not rooted in the teachings and sayings of the historical Jesus, but solely in Paul’s mystical vision of Christ, a man Paul actually never met. He then shows how Paul established the new religion through anti-Semitic propaganda, which ultimately crushed the Jesus Movement. Sure to be controversial, this is an exciting, well-written popular religious history that cuts to the heart of the differences between Christianity and Judaism, to the origins of one of the world’s great religions and, ultimately, to the question of who Jesus Christ really was – a Jew or a Christian.

How Jesus Became God
How Jesus Became God

Author: Bart D. Ehrman

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2014-03-25

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0062252194

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New York Times bestselling author and Bible expert Bart Ehrman reveals how Jesus’s divinity became dogma in the first few centuries of the early church. The claim at the heart of the Christian faith is that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, God. But this is not what the original disciples believed during Jesus’s lifetime—and it is not what Jesus claimed about himself. How Jesus Became God tells the story of an idea that shaped Christianity, and of the evolution of a belief that looked very different in the fourth century than it did in the first. A master explainer of Christian history, texts, and traditions, Ehrman reveals how an apocalyptic prophet from the backwaters of rural Galilee crucified for crimes against the state came to be thought of as equal with the one God Almighty, Creator of all things. But how did he move from being a Jewish prophet to being God? In a book that took eight years to research and write, Ehrman sketches Jesus’s transformation from a human prophet to the Son of God exalted to divine status at his resurrection. Only when some of Jesus’s followers had visions of him after his death—alive again—did anyone come to think that he, the prophet from Galilee, had become God. And what they meant by that was not at all what people mean today. Written for secular historians of religion and believers alike, How Jesus Became God will engage anyone interested in the historical developments that led to the affirmation at the heart of Christianity: Jesus was, and is, God.

How God Became Jesus
How God Became Jesus

Author: Michael F. Bird

Publisher: Zondervan Academic

Published: 2014-03-25

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0310519616

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In his recent book How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher From Galilee historian Bart Ehrman explores a claim that resides at the heart of the Christian faith— that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, God. According to Ehrman, though, this is not what the earliest disciples believed, nor what Jesus claimed about himself. The first response book to this latest challenge to Christianity from Ehrman, How God Became Jesus features the work of five internationally recognized biblical scholars. While subjecting his claims to critical scrutiny, they offer a better, historically informed account of why the Galilean preacher from Nazareth came to be hailed as “the Lord Jesus Christ.” Namely, they contend, the exalted place of Jesus in belief and worship is clearly evident in the earliest Christian sources, shortly following his death, and was not simply the invention of the church centuries later.

How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?
How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?

Author: Larry W. Hurtado

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2005-11-02

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 1467425044

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In How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Larry Hurtado investigates the intense devotion to Jesus that emerged with surprising speed after his death. Reverence for Jesus among early Christians, notes Hurtado, included both grand claims about Jesus' significance and a pattern of devotional practices that effectively treated him as divine. This book argues that whatever one makes of such devotion to Jesus, the subject deserves serious historical consideration. Mapping out the lively current debate about Jesus, Hurtado explains the evidence, issues, and positions at stake. He goes on to treat the opposition to -- and severe costs of -- worshiping Jesus, the history of incorporating such devotion into Jewish monotheism, and the role of religious experience in Christianity's development out of Judaism. The follow-up to Hurtado's award-winningLord Jesus Christ (2003), this book provides compelling answers to queries about the development of the church's belief in the divinity of Jesus.

When Jesus Became God
When Jesus Became God

Author: Richard E. Rubenstein

Publisher: Mariner Books

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 9780156013154

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A fascinating volume details the two priests--Arius and Athanasius--mortal enemies who became the major players in the fateful conflict in Christendom to decide whether Jesus was God or the holiest of men until the Reformation and Alexander, the powerful bishop of Alexandria, who was determined to find a speedy resolution. Reprint.

From Christ to Christianity
From Christ to Christianity

Author: James R. Edwards

Publisher: Baker Academic

Published: 2021-07-06

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1493420216

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How did the movement founded by Jesus transform more in the first seventy-five years after his death than it has in the two thousand years since? This book tells the story of how the Christian movement, which began as relatively informal, rural, Hebrew and Aramaic speaking, and closely anchored to the Jewish synagogue, became primarily urban, Greek speaking, and gentile by the early second century, spreading through the Greco-Roman world with a mission agenda and church organization distinct from its roots in Jewish Galilee. It also shows how the early church's witness can encourage the church today.

Paul and Jesus
Paul and Jesus

Author: James D. Tabor

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-11-13

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1439134987

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In this “compulsively readable exploration of the tangled world of Christian origins” (Publishers Weekly), religious historian James Tabor illuminates the earliest years of Jesus’ teachings before Paul shaped them into the religion we know today. This fascinating examination of the earliest years of Christianity reveals how the man we call St. Paul shaped Christianity as we know it today. Historians know almost nothing about the two decades following the crucifixion of Jesus, when his followers regrouped and began to spread his message. During this time Paul joined the movement and began to preach to the gentiles. Using the oldest Christian documents that we have—the letters of Paul—as well as other early Chris­tian sources, historian and scholar James Tabor reconstructs the origins of Christianity. Tabor shows how Paul separated himself from Peter and James to introduce his own version of Christianity, which would continue to develop independently of the message that Jesus, James, and Peter preached. Paul and Jesus illuminates the fascinating period of history when Christianity was born out of Judaism.

American Jesus
American Jesus

Author: Stephen Prothero

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2004-09-18

Total Pages: 508

ISBN-13: 1466806052

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A Deep Dive into America's Complex Relationship with Jesus There's no denying America's rich religious background–belief is woven into daily life. But as Stephen Prothero argues in American Jesus, many of the most interesting appraisals of Jesus have emerged outside the churches: in music, film, and popular culture; and among Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and people of no religion at all. Delve into this compelling chronicle as it explores how Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth, has been refashioned into distinctly American identities over the centuries. From his enlistment as a beacon of hope for abolitionists to his appropriation as a figurehead for Klansmen, the image of Jesus has been as mercurial as it is influential. In this diverse and conflicted scene, American Jesus stands as a testament to the peculiar fusion of the temporal and divine in contemporary America. Equal parts enlightening and entertaining, American Jesus goes beyond being simply a work of history. It’s an intricate mirror, reflecting the American spirit while questioning the nation's socio-cultural fabric.

The Case for Christ
The Case for Christ

Author: Lee Strobel

Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com

Published: 2010-11

Total Pages: 510

ISBN-13: 1458759202

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The book consists primarily of interviews between Strobel (a former legal editor at the Chicago Tribune) and biblical scholars such as Bruce Metzger. Each interview is based on a simple question, concerning historical evidence (for example, "Can the Biographies of Jesus Be Trusted?"), scientific evidence, ("Does Archaeology Confirm or Contradict Jesus' Biographies?"), and "psychiatric evidence" ("Was Jesus Crazy When He Claimed to Be the Son of God?"). Together, these interviews compose a case brief defending Jesus' divinity, and urging readers to reach a verdict of their own.

The Passover Plot
The Passover Plot

Author: Hugh Schonfield

Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser

Published: 2004-04-01

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1934708410

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Finally back in print, this special 40th anniversary edition of Dr. Schonfield’s international multimillion-copy bestseller is set to rock the establishment view of the life of Jesus all over again. There is probably no other figure in modern Jewish historical research who is more controversial or famous than Hugh J. Schonfield, who once said: “The scholars deplore that I have spilled the beans to the public. Several of them have said to me, ‘You ought to have kept this just among ourselves, you know.’” What he did to “spill the beans” was present historical evidence suggesting that Jesus was a mortal man, a young genius who believed himself to be the Messiah and deliberately and brilliantly planned his entire ministry according to the Old Testament prophecies—even to the extent of plotting his own arrest, crucifixion and resurrection. Since Schonfield’s death in 1988, his popularity and the interest in his prodigious work, which included over 40 books, has drawn increasing attention, particularly outside Judaism. In fact, it is probably fair to say that his contribution to the Gentile understanding of Jewish aspirations among those within the Christian cultural framework has been without parallel. In true Christian tradition, he has also been the cause of much contention. In the wake of resurgent interest in religious history spurred by Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, this 40th anniversary edition of The Passover Plot is set to engage a completely new generation of readers searching for truth.