Jesus--The Man Who Became God
Of course, there are enormous differences in belief among various
Christian denominations, but all Christian groups agree on one thing:
Jesus was not a mere human but was himself God. This religious/
theological view differs from scholarly views, which also offer a variety
of perspectives on the historical Jesus. Still, scholars share the recognition
that Jesus was not considered to be more than a man during his lifetime.
Somehow, he ended up on the wrong side of the law, was condemned for
treason, and was crucified. Those facts return us to our central question:
How did a Jewish preacher executed for crimes against the state come to be
seen as the Lord God Almighty? How did Jesus become God?
A Crucial Question
A. The question of how Jesus became God may seem on the surface to
be a matter of theological interest only, important only to Christian
believers and scholars. But in fact, it is a question that should matter
to everyone who thinks that history matters, whether Christian or
not. As we will see in this course, it is among the most significant
historical questions in all of Western civilization.
B. If Jesus had never come to be considered God, Western civilization
as we know it would never have developed. To explain why this is
so requires a good bit of background.
1. Whatever else the historical Jesus may have been, Jesus of
Nazareth was a Jewish preacher who proclaimed that God’s
kingdom was soon to come to earth.
2. Jesus’s followers were lower-class, Aramaic-speaking peasants
from Galilee. During l1is ministry, they had no sense that he
was planning to start a new religion. In their view, he was
giving them the true and correct understanding of their own
religion, Judaism.
3. As we will see at length in this course, those followers had no
inkling during his life time that Jesus was anything other than
human. It was only after his death that many of them came to
believe that he had been raised from the dead and exalted to the
divine realm; for them, in some way and in some sense, this
made Jesus into a divine being.
4. That is what led them to develop a new religion-not the
Jewish religion they had while they followed Jesus on earth
but a Christian religion predicated on the idea that Jesus was a
divine being who had died and had been raised from the dead.
5. If Jesus had never come to be considered God, his followers
would have remained within their Jewish communities as Jews
who thought their now-dead teacher was the one who gave
them true insights into what the religion both was and was
supposed to be. In other words, the followers of Jesus would
have remained a sect within Judaism.
6. But because they began to think that Jesus was more
than human, their message began to appeal to outsiders.
Missionaries, such as Paul, began to insist that a person did not
have to be a Jew to be a follower of Jesus. Non-Jews began to
convert more often than Jews to this new faith.
7. These non-Jews in particular would have had no problem
believing that a human could also be divine, and their faith
in this divine man Jesus began to spread rapidly throughout
the Roman world. Through evangelism and missionary work,
Christianity gradually grew at a rate of about 40 percent every
decade. By the beginning of the 4“‘ century, nearly 5 percent of
the empire was Christian.
8. When the emperor Constantine converted to the faith,
Christianity changed from being a persecuted, marginalized
religion to becoming the dominant religious force in the
empire. With imperial backing, it could also consolidate itself
and utilize secular power to enforce its theological beliefs,
including the belief that Jesus himself was God.
9. What all this means is that if the followers of Jesus
had never decided that he was not a mere mortal, the
Christian religion would have remained a part of Judaism,
and the Roman Empire would never have been taken over by
the religion. As a result, the history of late antiquity, the
Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and
modernity as we know it would never have transpired.
The conversion of the emperor Constantine to Christianity
in the early 4th century transformed the faith into the
dominant religious force in the Roman Empire.
10. Thus, the early Christian claim that Jesus was himself God
completely altered the course of world history for all time.
Jesus as God in Modern Times
A. The fact that Jesus’s followers began to call him God affects not
only the history of Western civilization but also billions of lives in
our own day.
B. In our world today, some two billion people consider themselves to
be Christian. The vast majority of these two billion people believe
that Jesus is, in some sense, God.
C. The Christian religion affects not only what people believe but also
how they choose to live their lives, what ethical choices they make,
how they engage in politics, what economic theories they support,
and what social structures they believe in.
D. If Jesus were thought to be merely another human, many of these
Christians-arguably most-would not have their Christian faith to
help guide their beliefs, ethics, and social and political views.
E. This is less a question of who Jesus really was than who he was-
and continues to be-perceived to be by l1is followers.
Tlmetime and Overview of Early Christian Belief
A. We are not completely certain about Jesus’s dates. The usual date of
his birth is given as 4 B.C.E. because that is when King Herod died.
Jesus probably died around 30 C.E., under Pilate, who ruled from
26 to 36 C.E.
B. Our first Christian author was Paul, writing around 50 to 60 C.E.
The New Testament Gospels were probably written between 65 and
95 C.E., with Mark first, then Matthew and Luke, and then John.
C. Probably during the period of the New Testament-the first century
of the Christian faith-there were many different views about
Jesus, God, salvation, and other issues.
1. It has proved difficult for historians to establish what different
communities of Christians believed in this earliest period of the
church, in no small measure because we are so restricted in our
surviving sources of information.
2. Still, Paul’s views differed from those of his opponents in
Galatia and Corinth, including their views of the significance
of Jesus’s death and Resurrection
D. This early diversity becomes clearer in later periods. Already in the
2nd and 3rd centuries, Christianity was astonishingly diversified, with
Christian leaders and their congregations disagreeing on absolutely
fundamental issues.
1. This can be seen in ancient Christian views of God--whether
the God of the Bible was good or evil.
2. We also find disagreement in views of creation-whether the
world was the good creation of a loving God or an evil place
manufactured by ignorant and wicked divinities.
3. And we see disagreement in views of Scripture-whether the
Jewish Bible was a revelation from on high or a book meant to
lead the human race astray.
E. These ancient differences attested in the 2nd and 3rd centuries were
especially evident in Christian understandings of Jesus.
1. Was he a man but not God?
2. Was he God but not a man?
3. Was he two different beings, one a god and the other a man?
4. Was he one being, partially God and partially man?
5. Was he one being, fully God and fully man? If so, how was
that possible?
The Nicene Creed
A. The debates over who Christ really was came to culmination in the
early 4“‘ century, soon after the conversion of Constantine.
B. Starting in the early 4th century, leaders of the church began to hold
conferences at which they could hammer out statements of faith to
be subscribed to by all believers.
C. Christian creeds began to be written: statements of faith to be
adhered to by all those who confessed themselves to be Christian.
D. The most famous of these is the Nicene Creed, so-called because it
was adopted by a council of bishops of the church from around the
world, who gathered to debate these issues in Nicaea, a city in Asia
Minor (modem Turkey).
E. The Nicene Creed is clear and definitive in its affirmation that
Christ is God. He is not the same as God the Father, but he is equal
with him in every way and not at all subordinate to him. He always
existed, and he was the one who created the universe.
F. This became the standard belief in the Christian church and,
eventually, the standard belief of the Roman emperors themselves.
G. If Jesus had remained a crucified Jew-and not God-Christianity
would never have become the religion of Rome; we would not have
had the history of the West; and countless people would probably
have remained pagan.
Course Overview
Throughout these 24 lectures, we will go into considerable depth on
a number of important questions.
How did ancient peoples-both pagans and Jews-understand that
gods could become humans and humans could be gods?
What were the main characteristics of Jesus’s public ministry
and proclamation? In particular, what did he teach and say
about himself?
What exactly made the first Christians say that Jesus was more than
a Jewish teacher?
When did the early Christians first declare that Jesus was God, and
what did they mean by that declaration at first?
How did early Christians debate the nature of Christ in the
following centuries?
And how did the 4"1-century sense, which has been handed down to
Christians today, emerge out of those debates, so that Jesus was not
only divine in some sense, but he was fully God, creator of heaven
and earth?
Suggested Reading
Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher #om
Galilee.
Questions to Consider
1. Think of as many different views of Jesus found among Christians
you know about in the World today. What, if anything, do they all have
in common?
2. Try to think of all the ways our world would be different if Christianity
had not become the dominant religion of the West some three or four
centuries after Jesus lived.
Lecture 1—Transcript
Jesus—The Man Who Became God
What ties the Christian world together? When we use the term Christianity
today, what do we mean? In fact, Christianity in the modem world is
remarkably diverse. Think of the enormous differences among various
Christian denominations, sects, and cults. We have the Roman Catholics with
their views of the pope or the Blessed Virgin Mary. We have the Mormons
with their views of Joseph Smith and the Angel Moroni. We have Southern
Baptists, and we have Greek Orthodox, New England Presbyterians, and
Appalachian snake handlers, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the members of
various fundamentalist Bible churches.
Or consider the various beliefs considered fundamental to one group or
another. Some Christians think you have to believe in the virgin birth, the
physical Resurrection, and a literal heaven and hell. Others think that you
do not have to subscribe to these as literal beliefs. Some Christians maintain
that the pope is infallible. Others insist that the written scriptures of the Old
and New Testaments are completely inerrant.
Some Christians think you should baptize babies by sprinkling. Some
think you should baptize adults by dunking. Some think that one baptism
is as good as another. Others think that if you’re not baptized in their own
particular church, you cannot be saved. And on, and on, and on. But there’s
one thing that all of these Christian groups agree on. Jesus was not a mere
human, but was himself God. How do they reach that consensus? How and
when did the man Jesus become God in their eyes? That, as we’ll soon see,
is no small question.
The religious theological view that Jesus is God is found throughout most
of modem Christendom. But it is not the view that historians have when
they try to describe the historical Jesus himself--the man Jesus, who walked
the lanes and fields of Galilee in ancient Israel. This may not make sense to
those of you who are Christian. But it’ll make better sense the further we get
into the course.
Scholars have worked for centuries to understand who the historical Jesus
was, as we’ll see further in Lecture 6. There continue to be a range of
views among scholars today. Some scholars think of Jesus as a great rabbi
who interpreted scripture. Jesus taught the Hebrew Bible to his disciples.
He gave them his interpretation of the meaning of the Law of Moses, the
Torah. And according to this interpretation, what Jesus was really all about
was teaching that there are two principled laws in the entire Old Testament
Hebrew Bible: that you should love the Lord your God with all your heart,
soul, and strength, from Deuteronomy 6, and you should love your neighbor
as yourself from Leviticus 19. These are the two principal teaching of Jesus
as a Jewish rabbi teaching about the law-the Torah.
Other scholars have maintained that Jesus isn’t best seen simply as an
interpreter of scripture-that instead he should be seen as a social reformer
who wanted to transform society. Some have pointed out that Jesus had a
lot of women that he was involved with in his ministry, and that he elevated
the role of women in his ministry. Doesn’t that suggest he was some kind of
proto-feminist?
Others have pointed out that he urged his followers to share their goods
with one another, that he was against anything like what we would think of
today as a capitalistic system. So wasn’t Jesus possibly a proto-Marxist of
some kind?
Some scholars have said that Jesus is probably best understood to be a zealot
who wanted to overthrow the Roman oppressors by force. After all, when
Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, l1is disciples pulled out
swords and fought for him. What were they doing with swords, exactly,
unless Jesus wanted an armed rebellion? And Jesus was crucified after all for
calling himself the king of the Jews. That’s a political charge. And so wasn’t
Jesus politically motivated?
There are other scholars who have wanted to insist that Jesus is better
understood as a kind of cynic philosopher. Now cynics in the ancient world
were not people were simply cynical, they were people who insisted that
you should not live for your material things, you should live for the spiritual
life. And wasn’t Jesus like that-one who was anti-materialistic? Don’t
worry what you should wear. Don’t worry what you should eat. Instead,
concern yourselves with the spiritual things. And so wasn’t Jesus more like a
cynic philosopher?
Other scholars have claimed that Jesus is best understood as an apocalyptic
prophet-someone who predicted that God was soon to intervene in history
to overthrow the forces of evil and bring in a good kingdom here on earth.
Jesus goes around in his ministry preaching that the kingdom of God is
soon to arrive. Jesus talks about the Son of Man who’s going to come on the
clouds of heaven to destroy all the things that are opposed to God and set up
God’s kingdom.
Jesus tells his disciples that you twelve will be ruling on twelve thrones in
the con1ing kingdom of God. Jesus teaches people that they need to repent
in preparation for this con1ing kingdom, because those who don’t repent and
who are not ready will be cast out when the kingdom comes. So isn’t Jesus
best understood as an apocalyptic prophet who thought that the end was
very near?
What nearly all of these scholarly views have in com1non is that they
recognize that Jesus was a Jewish man who was not considered to be
more than a man during his lifetime. Those who hold these views do not
necessarily deny that Jesus was divine. They’re simply saying that the
divinity of Jesus was not recognized by Jesus’ followers during his earthly
life, whether or not he was divine. Moreover, all of these views maintain that
Jesus, for one reason or another, ended up on the wrong side of the law, that
he was condemned for political treason against the state of Rome, and that
he was then unceremoniously humiliated, tortured, and crucified.
But how did a Jewish preacher, executed for crimes against the state, come
to be seen as the Lord God, who created heaven and earth, as he’s believed
to be by billions of people today? To reiterate our central question, how did
Jesus become God? This question may seem on the surface to be a matter of
theological interest only, important only to Christian believers and Christian
scholars. But in fact, as it turns out, it’s a question that should matter to
everyone who thinks that history matters, whether they’re Christian or not.
In this course, I’ll be arguing that this is among the most significant historical
questions in all of Western civilization. That may seem like a rather bold
claim. But I think I can back it up. Western civilization, as we know it, would
never have developed if Jesus had never been declared God. To explain why
requires a good bit of background.
Whatever else he may have been, Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish preacher
who proclaimed that God’s kingdom was soon to come to earth. This is
found throughout all of our early traditions about Jesus, and it is not debated
by scholars. Tl1is is something that Jesus proclaimed. Jesus’ followers were
lower-class Aramaic-speaking peasants from Galilee. They, like him, were
Jewish. They followed the Jewish law. They kept Jewish customs. They
understood themselves to be Jews.
During Jesus’ ministry, these followers of Jesus had no sense at all that he
was planning on starting a new religion. In their view, he was giving them
the true and correct understanding of their own religion, Judaism. As we’ll
see at length in this course, these followers had no inkling during his lifetime
that Jesus was anything other than human.
It was only after Jesus’ death that many of these followers came to believe
that he had been raised from the dead and exalted to the divine realm. For
them, in some way and in some sense, this made Jesus into a divine being.
That is what led them to develop a new religion. Not the Jewish religion they
had while they followed Jesus on earth, but a Christian religion predicated
on the idea that he was a divine being who had died and been raised from
the dead.
If Jesus had never come to be considered God, the followers of Jesus would
have remained within their Jewish communities as Jews, who thought that
their now dead teacher was the one who gave them true insights into what
the religion both was and was supposed to be. In other words, the followers
of Jesus would have remained a sect within Judaism. But since they began
to think that Jesus was more than human, their message began to appeal to
outsiders-to non-Jews.
Missionaries like the Apostle Paul began to insist that a person did not have
to be a Jew in order to be a follower of Jesus. Paul maintained that the death
and Resurrection of Jesus is what puts a person into a right relationship with
God, and the person does not have to be Jewish in order to believe in the
death and Resurrection of Jesus. And so the message of Jesus’ salvation
could go outside Judaism-it could go to the Gentiles.
For reasons we’ll explore later in the course, non-Jews began to convert to
tl1is faith in Jesus more often than Jews did. Non-Jews (that is, Gentiles who
were polytheists-who worshipped many gods) became followers of Jesus.
In these Gentile religions, the gods were seen to be of varying degrees of
power. Some gods were more powerful than others. And there was a kind of
overlap between the realm of the gods, that had gods at various ranks, and the
reahn of humans, which of course also have humans at varying ranks-some
humans are more powerful than others. In these ancient Gentile religions,
there was a bit of overlap between the divine realm and the human realm;
ancient people thought that there could be some people who were, in fact, in
a sense, divine. And so ancient people talked about people who were divine
beings-divine humans-a god-man.
And so the non-Jews who converted to believe in Jesus, following the
missionary work of Paul and others, would have had no problems at all
believing that a human could also be divine. Since Gentiles converted, their
faith in this god-man, Jesus, began rapidly to spread throughout the Roman
world. Christianity grew at a rate of about 40 percent every decade from its
beginning up until about 300 years later. It grew through the evangelistic and
missionary work of the followers of Jesus.
Now, over time, this rate of growth-40 percent every decade-began to act
like compound interest. It started yielding huge results. By the beginning of
the 4th Christian century, nearly 5 percent of the empire was Christian.
And then, the emperor of the empire-the Emperor Constantine-converted
to the faith. Before this, the emperors had been antagonistic toward
Christianity. And now you have a Christian emperor who converted because
so many other people had converted in his empire. And when the Emperor
Constantine converted, that changed everything. Not only did Christianity
change from being a persecuted marginalized religion in the empire to
becoming the dominant religious force, so that by the very end of the century
it became the official religion of the empire. With imperial backing, it could
also consolidate itself and utilize secular power to enforce its theological
views, including the belief that Jesus himself was God.
What all this means is that if the followers of Jesus had never decided that
he was not a mere mortal but was God, the Christian religion would have
remained a part of Judaism. The Christian religion that developed would
never have started. The Roman Empire would never have been taken over
by the Christian religion. And as a result, the history of late antiquity, the
Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and modernity as we know
it would never have transpired. And that’s why I’m arguing that the early
Christian claim that Jesus was himself God completely altered the course of
world history for all time.
The fact that Jesus’ followers began to call him God not only affects the
history of Western civilization, it affects billions of lives in our own day.
In our world today, some 2 billion people consider themselves Christian-
something like two out of every seven people walking the planet. The
vast majority of these 2 billion Christians believe that Jesus is, in some
sense, God.
The Christian religion affects not only what people believe, but also how they
choose to live their lives, what ethical choices they make, how they engage
in politics, what economic theories they support, what social structures they
believe in. If Jesus were thought to be merely another human like other
humans, many-arguably, most-of these Christians would not have their
Christian faith to guide their beliefs, ethics, social and political views.
The world we live in would be extremely different then. This is less a
question of who Jesus really was than a question of how he was perceived,
and continues to be perceived by his followers.
In order to orient ourselves to the information I’ll be providing in these
lectures, it’ll be important to provide some historical background that we’ll
return to time and again. To begin with, it would be helpful to provide a
timeline and a brief overview of early Christian belief First the timeline.
We’re not completely certain about Jesus’ own dates. The usual date of his
birth that’s given by scholars is 4 BCE. The reason for that date is because if
Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod of Israel, well, King Herod
died in the year 4 BCE, even though that makes it a little bit strange that
Jesus has died four years before Christ. But that’s the standard dating.
Jesus probably died sometime around the year 30 CE. He certainly died
when Pontius Pilate was the governor of Judea. And Pilate was the governor
of Judea between years 26 and 36 CE. So split the difference-probably
around the year 30.
Our first Christian author was the Apostle Paul. He wrote his books that are
still found in the New Testament between the years 50 and 60 CE. The New
Testament gospels were written somewhat later. Mark was probably our first
gospel, then Matthew and Luke, and then John. Mark was probably written
around the year 65 or 70. J0hI1 was probably written sometime around the
year 95. And so these books start appearing 35, 40 years after Jesus’ death,
and continued, then, to about 65 years after his death.
It appears that during the period of the New Testament-the 1st century of
the Christian faith-that there were a lot of different views about Jesus,
and God, and salvation, and most other things. We tend to think of early
Christianity as a monolithic phenomenon that everybody believed in the
same things, but in fact, scholars have shown that it wasn’t that way at
all. There were lots of different beliefs about everything of importance in
early Christianity.
But it’s proved difficult for historians to establish what exactly the different
communities of Christians believed in this earliest period of the church. In
no small measure, that’s because we are so restricted in our surviving sources
of information. We do know, of course, what some of the earliest Christians
believed-for example, the communities of Christians that were established
by the Apostle Paul, who wrote his letters to them in the 50s CE.
Still, Paul’s views differed from those of his opponents in many respects.
This shows that there was a wide range of diversity within early Christianity
because in virtually every one of Paul’s letters, he has to attack people who
disagree with him. And the people he’s attacking are not Jews or pagans.
They’re Christians; they are Christians who have other points of view.
For example, when Paul writes his letter to the Galatians, Paul had
established the church in Galatia and had taught them that the way to be right
with God was by believing in the death and Resurrection of Jesus. Some
other missionaries came in to Galatia--Christian missionaries--and insisted
that these believers in Jesus, who were Gentiles, had to become Jews if they
really wanted to follow Jesus. Their logic was impeccable in their eyes.
Jesus was himself Jewish. He was sent from the Jewish God. He was sent
to the Jews-the Jewish people. His coming was a fulfillment of the law of
the Jews. If you wanted to be a follower of the Jewish Jesus, then you had
to be Jewish. This made sense to these other missionaries, but for Paul, it
was nonsense.
Paul wrote his letter to Galatians to tell these Gentile Christians that they
must not become Jews. Because if they become Jews, they completely
misunderstand the fact that salvation comes only by the death and
Resurrection of Jesus, not by being Jewish. So my point is, you have different
groups in Christianity arguing different things, in this case, about whether a
person needs to be Jewish or not, a rather very basic view of real importance.
Or consider Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. Paul had opponents in the city of
Corinth, as well. He had established the church in this large city of Corinth
in modem day Greece. And after he left the church, there arose a faction that
had a different view from those put forth by Paul himself Paul maintained
that when somebody believed in Christ, they were made into a new creation.
In a sense, they had a new birth. They became a new person. Paul did not
believe, though, that people who put their faith in Christ were already
perfect. Sin was still in the world, and ultimate salvation would come later
when Jesus returns from heaven and destroys the forces of evil and sets of
his good kingdom here on earth.
Followers in Corinth, though-Christians in Corinth-came to a different
idea. Some of them thought that they were a new creation in Christ, that in
fact, they were already experiencing the full benefits of salvation and there’s
nothing yet to happen. In other words, this is as good as it gets. We are
experiencing heaven on earth. And this is the way it will be into perpetuity.
Paul thought this was completely wrong. And so he wrote his letter to the
Corinthians to explain that, in fact, there was a lot yet to happen, and that
people were not enjoying the full benefits of salvation. Once again, we see a
conflict, because different Christians are believing different things.
This early diversity becomes more clear in later periods. And it is quite
patent that already, in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, Christianity was astonishingly
diversified, with Christian leaders and their congregations disagreeing on
absolutely fundamental issues. This can be seen in ancient Christian views
of God.
In the 2nd and 3rd Christian centuries-so starting, say, 100 years after Jesus’
death going on for another couple hundred years-there were enormous
differences in the views of God himself including such things as, how
many gods are there? Is the God of the Old Testament the God of the New
Testament? Isn’t the Old Testament God a God of wrath, and the New
Testament God a God of love? In that case, aren’t there two different gods?
Some Christians maintained, in fact, that there were 12 gods. Other
Christians said there were 30 gods. We know of one Christian group that said
that there are 365 gods. Could the God who made this world be good? Is the
creator of this world a good God? Look around. There are earthquakes, and
hurricanes, and tsunamis, and famine, and drought, and starvation, and war.
Could God have created this mess?
Some Christians said, yes, he did create it. And it’s messed up not because of
God, but for other reasons. And others said, no, of course, God has nothing
to do with this world. The creator is not a good divinity. And what about the
creation itself? Is it a good creation made by a loving God? Or is it an evil
place manufactured by ignorant and wicked divinities?
Will this world be redeemed? Will this world be destroyed? Will this world
be transcended? It depends which Christian group you talk to. Moreover,
there were different views of scripture among the various Christian groups,
especially about the Jewish Bible. Was the Jewish Bible to be understood to
be a revelation from the true God? Or was it a book that was meant to lead
the human race astray?
For many Christians who were not raised Jewish, the Old Testament seemed
to hold very strange laws indeed. You can’t eat ham. You can’t eat shrimp.
You mean we have to cut off part of the skin of our babies’ penises? And if
children are disobedient, they’re to be executed? If you work on the Sabbath,
you’re to be executed? Does God really want people to live this way?
Well, some people thought that the law had been given by God. And others
thought not.
These ancient differences attested in the second and 3rd Christian centuries
were especially evident in Christian understandings of who Jesus was. Some
Christians in the 2nd and 3rd century said that Jesus was fully human, but he
was not divine. How could Jesus be God if God was God and there’s only
one God?
These Christians insisted that the divinity of Jesus was a blasphemy because
in order to affirm the divinity of Christ requires you to believe in two gods.
And that can’t be because God himself says that he alone is God and there is
no other. And so in this view, Christ was a man, but he wasn’t God.
There were other Christians who took the opposite point of view-that Christ
was a God, but he wasn’t human. If Christ is God, then of course he can’t be
a man. God can’t be a man any more than a man can be a rock. Well, then,
why did he seem to be a human? It was all an appearance. It was a phantasm.
Jesus didn’t really have a human body according to these Christians.
There were other Christians who maintained that Jesus Christ was two
different beings, that there was a man, Jesus, who was temporarily inhabited
by a divine being, the Christ, who gave him the power to perform miracles
and to deliver his spectacular teachings, and the Christ left Jesus when he
was crucified, because the divine Christ can’t suffer.
And so Jesus cries out on his cross, my God, my God why have you left me
behind? Or why have you forsaken me? Why? Because the divine element
had left Jesus, according to that Christian view.
According to another Christian view, Jesus Christ was both human and
divine, but it is because he was partially God and he was partially man-half
and half There were others who insisted that Christ was fully God and fully
man at the same time. But he was only one person. Well, how could that be?
The debates over who Christ really was culminated in the early 4th century,
soon after the conversion of the Emperor Constantine. Starting in the early
4th century, leaders of the Church began to hold conferences at which they
would hammer out statements of faith to be subscribed to by all believers.
These were the Christian creeds that began to be written down. They were
statements of faith for all those who confessed themselves to be Christian.
The most famous of these statements of faith is the Nicene Creed, which is
called this because it was adopted by a council of bishops of the church from
around the world who gathered to debate these issues in the city of Nicea in
Asia Minor-modem Turkey. This Council of Nicea happened in the year
325 CE.
The Nicene Creed is clear and definitive in its affirmation that Christ is God.
He is not the same as God the Father, but he is equal with him in every way,
and he is not at all subordinate to him. Christ, according to this creed, Christ
always existed, and he was the one who created the universe.
This became the standard belief in the Christian church, and eventually it
was the standard belief of the Roman emperors themselves. Now, if Jesus
had remained a crucified Jew, and had not become God, then Christianity
would not have grown exponentially over the years. Millions of people
would not have converted. The Roman emperor himself would not have
converted. And Christianity would not have become the religion of Rome,
so that it eventually would not have become the religion of the West. As a
result, most of us would now still be pagan.
I provided a brief overview of where we’ll be going in the course. Throughout
these 24 lectures, we’ll be going into considerable depth on most of these
important questions. How did ancient peoples, both pagans and Jews,
understand that Gods could become humans and humans could become
gods? What were the main characteristics of Jesus’ public proclamation and
ministry? In particular, what did Jesus teach and say about himself? And
what exactly made the first Christians say that Jesus was more than a Jewish
teacher? When did they first declare that he was God?
And once they declared he was God, what did they mean by that? How did
they debate the nature of Christ in the following centuries? And how did the
4th-century sense, that has been handed down to Christians today, emerge out
of those debates, so that Jesus was not only divine in some sense, but he was
fully God, creator of heaven and earth?
I hope you find these questions not only important, but also interesting. We’ll
begin to plunge into them in the next lecture.
