Excerpts from Christology Books now Available

Over at the Huffington Post, Bart Ehrman gives a very good summary of his argument set forth in How Jesus Became God.

To whet your appeitite, he writes:

Many believers – at least very conservative evangelical Christians and others who have not had much contact with biblical scholarship – will be surprised to learn that Jesus did not spend his preaching ministry in Galilee proclaiming that he was the second member of the Trinity. In fact, as I argue in the book, the followers of Jesus had no inkling that he was divine until after his death. What changed their views was the belief, which blind-sided them at first, that Jesus had been raised from the dead. And why did they come to believe that? Here another surprise is in store. It had nothing to do with the discovery of an empty tomb three days after his death. The disciples probably didn’t discover an empty tomb. There probably wasn’t a tomb.

Thanks to Zondervan is a webpage that puts up the preface and opening chapter of our book How God Became Jesus which is a counter-response to Bart Ehrman.

The chapter closes with the words:

Not everything Ehrman says is wrong. Much we accept, and other scholars may side with him on issues here and there. However,our overall verdict is that Ehrman has not extended or enhanced our knowledge of Christian origins. Therefore, we hope to put up a rival perspective to Ehrman by critiquing his arguments and by offering a better model for understanding the origins of belief in Jesus’ divine nature. In doing so, we aim to give a historically informed account as to why the Galilean preacher from Nazareth was hailed as “the Lord Jesus Christ” and how he became the object of worship in the early church. We believe, in short, that God became Jesus!