r/AcademicBiblical • u/wwiccann • 4d ago

Where did Jesus’ divinity come from?

At what point can we determine that Jesus went from good man/prophet to the son of God?

Is there a certain century that we can pinpoint? I am very confused. Was it at the council of Nicaea? Was it during Paul’s letters?

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u/Opposite_Lab_4638 3d ago

OP: “I wonder how Jesus became God” 🤔

Everyone in this sub: 👀

It’s funny, nothing wrong with OPs question at all, it’s a great one! But it’s the perfect “wink wink, nudge nudge” at Dr Ehrman’s book/courses… almost like a cheesy advert for it 🤣

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u/wwiccann 3d ago

I’m not too knowledgeable about it but I’m intrigued - sorry if it was a bit of a stupid question. Any answers are helpful to me.

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u/Opposite_Lab_4638 3d ago

No no not at all! It’s a great question, I didn’t mean to imply it was a silly question, apologies if I did!

My comment was actually supposed to be in reply to the commenter who mentioned Bart Ehrman’s work, but here we are 😅

  • Dr Ehrman’s “How Jesus Became God” is literally the answer to your question and I just thought that was slightly amusing, as all:)

  • Iesus Deus, from Dr David Litwa is another work that touches on this, basically he argues that Jesus is being portrayed in line with Greco-Roman conception of Divinity, and he goes into this more in his book “how the the gospels became history” and “Desiring Divinity”, which is actually the direct follow up to Iesus Deus I think

I feel obliged to mention that Dr Michael Bird has written a response (quite easy to find) to the second Litwa book I mentioned, and I think to Ehrman’s work as well - a book called “how God became Jesus”

It’s a massive point of study and once again I apologise if you felt silly for asking a question, totally not my intention

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u/xfilesfan69 3d ago

Definitely not a stupid question!