Bart Ehrman's new book. Discusses the evolution of how the thought about Jesus' divinity evolved, in terms of: being made divine, being born divine, always being divine. Ehrman used to wonder how G-d became a man, now he wonders how a man became G-d. He does leave the theological questions and writes purely on history. He stopped being a Xian when he could no longer support his beliefs historically. Anyone read his works? Intelligent discussion?

Jesus didn't "become" God. Jesus always has been God and always will be God.

First you have to look at it from a non-religion form of way I guess you would say. The word "God" means authority, or well being of authority.

Jesus is our God because Jesus created us, molded us, and much more. Jesus is the Word before he became flesh. Don't know exactly where the term "Word" comes from originally.

And also have to keep in mind, we to are "gods". God gave us dominion over the beasts of this world, thus making us their authority, thus making us gods. Because that is exactly what we were made for, the incentive behind that is again beyond me.

John 1:1
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Notice the Word was with God and the Word was God, but how can this be? Not entirely sure if God's name is originally used in the original scriptures or not or if it is Jehovah. But even from the beginning it speaks of two different persons eg., Jesus and his father. Jesus isn't a brother, for 1 he is again the one that created us and 2 you'll never see a reference from Jesus saying "our" father. Is always his father.


Genesis 2:7
7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.


1 - notice again who formed man, "Lord" God. The different terms are used throughout the bible eg., "God or "LORD God" to show more specifically who did what, ect.

2 - then notice God formed man, then breathed life into him eg., gave him a soul. And also notice where specifically our souls come from specifically, God. Our souls aren't just a "creation". But are actually a part of God. Thus how we are "Children" of God.

"Man" is just a gender. We're not talking about a fantasy here where there are dragons and witches oh my lol.

"Genesis 2:7" again,
then we go to -
1 Corinthians 3:16
16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

Now all this talk about god"s" and yet there is but one God? Absolutely, again have to keep the words in context. Again the word God is a being of authority, so there can be many, yet one. We are gods to the beasts of this world and to some people depending on your position in life eg., bosses at work, ect are technically your "gods" using the word in context. They are the one's that tell you what to do at work, when to do it, ect. Not saying they have anything to do with your salvation, just an example on the word "god" and it's meaning.

This fits the timeline Ehrman demonstrates. Examining the Church's development: 1. Jesus is a peasant teacher, 2. Jesus is made a g-d after his death (later at his baptism), 3. Jesus was born a g-d from a virgin and then finally 4. Jesus was always a g-d. This was the evolution of the perception of Jesus and how it changed ove time.

Yahshua was born a man. Yet he was not born into sin. All people are born into sin. How can this be? He is Born of the Holy Spirit yet why did he wait until age 30 to come out and be baptized? Why?

This is true, God presented himself as a peasant. He did not want fortune of money or fame. He wanted to spread the good news, the instructions of what he wishes. Plus on a general note, the poor are generally more humble and home welcoming then the rich are.



Jesus was God before then, again he is our creator. But Jesus himself in the "flesh" was God before his death and before his baptism... although not sure how the baptism came later after his death. And is still God. "God" is not a word denoted to a type of being, it is a title showing authority over another(s). Thus why Jesus is our God, for he created us and has all and entire complete power over us.



We are gods, just Jesus is the God of gods, but yes he was born from a virgin. His mother, had not been with a man prior to Jesus being born.

Deuteronomy 10:17
17 For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:



What changed over time? God is the same today as he was yesterday and will be tomorrow.

We are born into sin? Howso? Jesus died for our sins many many years ago. I'm just as sinful or sinless today as I was first day I was born thanks to God.

Come out and be baptized? .. Please elaborate on the coming out part. Being baptized isn't a public display or anything. I mean, yeah this one was done with other's around and many are. But doesn't have to be that way, it's not a public display. It's an act done that isn't physically needed for your survival that one does to show and express his/her faith and be cleansed.

I am not talking theologically; but historically. Xianity today is not the same as Xianity in the past

Please stay on subject, we're talking about specifically "God" here not specifically "Christianity/Xianity".

Who cares if it's not, if that is in fact true. It's not just "tradition". It's worshiping God and praising him in all his greatness. So yes, through the changes in culture, how one worships probably changes through a period of time as well.

God didn't give us a specific set of guidelines on how to worship him. We worship him through being obedient to his commandments. And praising him in all he does for us all.

I can only talk about the theology since I don't actually have an opinion on this.

The hebrew messianic figure with which jesus is loosely associated is really derived as an extrapolation of old hebrew, pheonican, aramaic and early-greek scriptural representations of much earlier oral traditions within which the religion was once practised, well more of a system of government but that's basically the formative role of religion (to govern a peoples).

Essentially, at its core, the hebrew messianic figure of which xtians liken the jesus deity (or aspect thereof), is an ideogram of a conceptual statement written YHWH. This figure, YHWH is associated with elohim (literally 'to life'), which in good translation means 'god of strength' pentacostally. The hebrew term "YHWH elohim" is incorrectly translated in xtian bibles as "the LORD God".

It doesn't mean that at all. Never did.

YHWH is a person, it means literally 'military leader'. The degree of clear, demonstrable and obvious Platoic influence in the NT books which simply does not exist in earlier hebrew religion elicits the modern theological hypothesis that greek scholars of classically educated romans were attempting to utilize what was at the time an intriguing asiatic pagan mythology towards political agenda: to redirect an aristocratic focus in the roman world of conservative imperialism, towards a more fruitful endeavour of democratic reform. After all, it was the main difference between the romans and the greeks, and the romans had taken to educating their best and brightest in greece.

It's a bit like if Greenpeace got their hands on Wicca and started rewriting it as being all about saving the whales. So new generations intruigued or attracted to wicca would actually be supporting Greenpeace. Point being, white lie, good cause. But lie. It is definitely an out and out lie, lie and lie, no question. Simple research of primary source documentation with independent translation clears that up instantly.

Anyhoo, as controversial as the observation leads, the current theological understanding academically is that hebrew religion was originally pantheistic and not monotheistic at all, and Elohim is probably the closest word you're ever going to find to describe "god" concept, although it doesn't really mean that, and it's a feminine term, which would really annoy xtian pentacostals to the very core. YHWH is jesus sure, if you put him in a suit of shining armour and place him at the head of a huge army of israelites slaughtering their foes, as it is what the ideogram means.

In other words, the most original, primary source documentation of hebrew scriptures are not written in a phonetic language, and they don't translate very well into phonetic languages. And that, combined with subesequent political agendas involved, is the clear reason for obvious and in some cases entirely intentional mistranslations of a jewish governing system to become a xtian fairy tale.

Couple of simple examples: old-hebrew term for a foreign lord or knight, in xtian bibles mistranslated as giant or angel-born. The old-hebrew term for angel is actually mistranslated in xtian bibles about 50% of the time as devil, a word and concept which didn't actually exist prior to the 12th century by the way (it's a middle english word, no such thing in hebrew times). And the catholic term 'demon' is actually a mistranslation of a greek term that was used by rabbi in the 1st century to describe divine messengers.
There is no such thing as 'heaven' in any stretch of the imagination in the entirety of old-hebrew religion, and 'hell' which is actually a nordic term of the 7th century, loosely mistranslates the hebrew term 'sheol' which in fact means 'don't wind up destitute in a city whatever you do, your life will be very very bad', and it doesn't nor has it ever meant anything remotely otherworldly.
These fundamental xtian ideals are utter fictions. They just don't exist in the religion it claims to come from, at all, not in any way. Where they are found historically, is in the european rural pagan mythology of greco-roman times, not even slightly hebrew in origin.

It's all really nothing new. Same thing happened with egyptian revival. Their pagan religions were all but utterly wiped out by the end of the 1st century and experienced a few revivals over the next two millennia. But they were re-imagined innaccurately, and for example the pyramids went from bold examples of nationalist industrial potency in the face of any potential enemy, to 'doorways to the otherworld' which is utter rot. They were never that infantile, you'd could never accomplish such an undertaking if you were, and all empirical evidence infers the standing aforementioned hypothesis exclusively. Not magical vessels designed to perform magic, but intimidating monuments designed to intimidate. Clearly.
Compare a modern neo-egyptian pagan to a historical one and you'll find the old one laughing histerically at the new. That's how misinterpretation and ill-conception goes, it's the difference between the artist and their obsessed fans.

Very interesting post. Quite off topic to the thread in itself, but nevertheless interesting. And would appreciate you elaborate on things you've claimed in this post with third party sources, preferably two sources to each claim



Please do enlighten us with some links to cross reference the above statement.



Following definition comes from wikipedia. A bit different then your translation.

Sheol - translated as "grave", "pit", or "abode of the dead",



Hell is the abode of the dead, the grave. Sheol, grave, hell, are all interchangeable words for this same thing. That's why come the end of time, hell gives up it's dead for judgement.

Don't know what type of crack is being smoked up in here.

Jesus, according to the Bible I know has and always will be the Son of God.

He is our passage to heaven. Through him, we will see and know God.

BTW. It's spelled God, with a capital G. Not g-d.

Mass respeto.

Depends on how the word is being used, as a common noun or a proper noun. Jesus is the son of God but he is also God. He was only the "son" of God when he came in the flesh and was in the form of a peasant. Father/Son those are words we use in this mortal world, Jesus or should I say the Word was never "born". Has always been and will always be, thus why he's only known as the "son" of God while he was in mortal form on Earth, in whom we call Jesus. Jesus is OUR God. That's why Jesus repetedly says things of such -

Matthew 22:37
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

Matthew 4:7
7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Notice in both these incodents he says "thy God" or "your God".

And that's why when referring to Jesus' father, it says just "God". And why when Jesus was on the cross he cried out "my God, my God"

And in the following Jesus refers to his father as "his God". But none the less, they are one "God". As the word "God" is not a species, it is merely a title showing authority over something(s)/someone(s). But they are one God because their will is one, because they are "one" in that way. And because they are "one" we have one "God".

Mark 15:34
34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

still beating up on each other with dubious Bible-verses?

Who's beating who up? Who's fighting? Did I miss something? To think I was over there |----> discussing spiritual things with someone and I missed a fight :(

http://news.discovery.com/history/religion/gospel-of-jesus-wife-is-no-forgery-experts-rule-140410.htm



The Gospel of Jesus'�� Wife, a papyrus fragment of Coptic script containing a suggestion that Jesus may have been married, is an ancient document, and not a modern forgery, says a paper published in the Harvard Theological Review on Tuesday.

Tests by teams of engineering, biology, and chemistry professors from Columbia University, Harvard University, and MIT indicate the papyrus dates to between the sixth and ninth centuries, and possibly as far back as the second to fourth centuries.

The brownish-yellow, tattered fragment, about 1 1/2 inches by 3 inches, caused international uproar when it was presented at a conference in Rome in September 2012 by Harvard Professor Karen L. King.



Written in Coptic, a language of ancient Egyptian Christians, the fragment appears to be a broken conversation between Jesus and his disciples.

The center of the business-card-sized papyrus, which features just eight lines of text on the front and six lines on the back, contained the bombshell phrase "��Jesus said to them, 'My wife'"��

"She will be able to be my disciple," said the next line. And then: "��I dwell with her."

Dismissed as a clumsy forgery�� by the Vatican newspaper, the Gospel of Jesus�� Wife was widely debated by scholars. Skepticism abounded, with several experts arguing over the document'��s poor grammar and its uncertain provenance.



But according to Harvard Divinity School, "��none of the testing has produced any evidence that the fragment is a modern fabrication or forgery."

"��The fragment does not provide evidence that the historical Jesus was married but concerns an early Christian debate over whether women who are wives and mothers can be disciples of Jesus,"�� King wrote in the Harvard Theological Review.

In addition to radiocarbon testing, microscopic and multispectral imaging, the researchers used micro-Raman spectroscopy to determine that the carbon character of the ink matched samples of other papyri that date from the first to eighth centuries.

"After all the research was complete, King weighed all the evidence of the age and characteristics of the papyrus and ink, handwriting, language, and historical context to conclude the fragment is almost certainly a product of early Christians, not a modern forger," Harvard Divinity School said in a statement.



The Harvard Theological Review is also publishing a rebuttal to King'��s findings by Brown University professor Leo Depuydt, who still maintains the document is a forgery.

"��And not a very good one at that,"�� he wrote.

According to Depuydt, the fragment contains "��gross grammatical errors."�� Also, each word in it matched writing in the Gospel of Thomas, an early Christian text discovered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945.

"��It couldn'��t possibly be coincidence,"�� he told The New York Times.

Depuydt also argued that carbon black ink can be easily created by mixing candle soot and oil.

"An undergraduate student with one semester of Coptic can make a reed pen and start drawing lines,"�� he concluded.

Photo: Gospel of Jesus' Wife: front. Credit: Karen L. King 2012.

The Vatican's newspaper L'Osservatore Romano has claimed the gospel is a "very modern forgery".[5] A number of independent scholars have since provided evidence to support this view, suggesting the papyrus includes textual mistakes (a typographical error) identical to those made only in a particular on-line modern iteration of corresponding texts.

Revelation 19:7
7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
--

Ephesians 5:25-27
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
--

Isaiah 54:5
5 For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.
--

Think it's pretty clear that we're Jesus' bride, the church. More verses on this can be found if needed I do believe.

i dunno... there is a big chunk of his life that is missing, and unless he was gay, he should have gotten married.. that was the norm back then... but i'm sure you know better than me, i wasn't there... and if he wasn't married, how could there be the last Zion of Christ in dogma?

Zion of Christ in dogma? Please elaborate, not sure what is being referenced there. Why would he have to be gay or gotten married? He already has a wife, the church. And he didn't need a mortal wife eg., a flesh and blood woman, for he wasn't here to reproduce. He was here to finalize one covenant, and give us another in place.

He is referencing the movie Dogma

lol, great movie!...