BECAMEJESUS HOW GOD THE REAL ORIGINS OF BELIEF IN JESUS' DIVINE NATURE AR ESPONSE TO BART EHRMAN Michael F. Bird Craig A. Evans Simon J. Gathercole Charles E. Hill Chris Tilling i ZONDERVAN" ZOND.RVAN /-low God Became Jesus Copyright ~ 2014 by Michael F=. Bird. Craig A. Evans, Simon J. Gathereol •• Charla. E. ~iII, Chris TIlling This titl. is also available 8' a lend.rvan ebook. Visit www.zondervan.c:om/eboo!c.s. Requests for Information should be addressed to: Zondervan . .3900 Sparks Drive S£. Gtand Rapids, Michigan 49546 library of Consress Catalogins·in.Pubhcation D.t. Bird. Mich ..1 F . ~ow God became JeSUSt the r• •1 o rigins of belief In Jesus' divine nature-a response to Bart Ehrman I Micha.1 F. Bird. gen. ed. p. em. Includes bibliographical raf.rences. ISBN 978·().,~10·S1959·1 1. Subject one, 2. Subject two. I. Title. AAooo.o.Aoo 2004 OOO.OO-dC23 201400000 All Scripture quotations. unleS5 otherwise Indicated, ar. takan from The ~oly Bible. New International Version-, NtV'. CopyrlSht C 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Blblica, Inc; Used by permis sion, All rights reserved worldwide. 0/ Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from New Revised Standard Version the Bible. copyrlsht C 1989, and RSV are taken from the ~eviJed Standard Veuion 0/ the Bible. copyright C 1946, 1952, 1971: both by the Divllian of ChrilUen Education of the Natlonel Coun cil of Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permilSlcm. Any Internat eddresses (websites, blogs, ete:.) and telephone numbers in this book are of fered as a resource. They ere not Intended In any wey to be or Imply an endorsement by Zonderven, nor does Zond.rven vouch for the content of these sltas and numbers for the Ijfe of this book. All rlghu reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, storad In a retrieval sys tam, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic. mechanical, photocopy, record ing, or any other -except for brief quotations In printed reviews. without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover aesign: Jeffrey Thomson Inferior design & composition: Greg .Iohnson/Te.dboolc: Per/ed Printed In the United States 0/ America 14 i! 16 17 18 19 20 IQVSI 22 11 20 19 18 17 16 1.5 14 13 12 II 10 9 8 7 6 !Ii 4 3 2 I CONTENTS Editor's Preface 7 Abbreviations 10 1. The Story of Jesus as the Story of God 11 Michael F. Bird. General Editor 2. Of Gods. Angels. and Men 22 Michael F. Bird Excursus 1: Kings. Angels. and Holy Men 41 3. Old Jesus Think He was God? 45 Michael F. Bird 4. GeHlng the Burial Traditions and Evidences Right 71 Craig A. Eva,1S 5. What Did the First Christians Think about Jesus? 94 Simon Gathercole 6. Problems with Ehrman'slnterpratlve Categories 117 Chris Tilling 7. Misreading Paul's Christology: Problems with Ehrman's Exegesis 134 Chris Tilling O. An Exclusive Religion: Orthodoxy and Heresy. Inclusion and Exclusion 151 Charles E. Hill Excursus 2: Second-Century Evidence for Jesus as God: Pagan. Early Orthodox. and Gnostic Testimony 169 Excursus 3: Second-Century Evidence for Jesus es God: The Nomina Sacra 172 9. Paradox Pushers and Persecutors? 175 Charles E. Hill Excursus 4: Third-Century Evidence for Jesus as God: The Alexamenos Graffitlo 197 Excursus 5: Third-Century Evidence for Jesus as God: The Inscription at Meggldo 199 10. Concluding Thoughts 201 Michael F. Bird, General Editor Endnotes 207 Editor's Preface The purpose of this volume is to offer a critical response to Bart Ehrman's book How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee. Ehrman is something of a celebrity skeptic. The media attraction is easy to understand. Ehrman has a famous deconversion story from being a fundamentalist Christian to becoming a "happy agnostic." He's a New York Times bestsell ing author, having written several books about the Bible, Jesus, and God with a view to debunking widely held religious beliefs as based on a mixture of bad history, deception, and myth. He's a publicist's dream since in talk shows and in live debates he knows how to stir a crowd through hefty criticism, dry wit, on the spot recall of histori cal facts, and rhetorical hyperbole. He also has a global audience. In fact, if I can offer a personal anecdote, on two occasions I've received emails from Christians in the Middle East asking how to respond to local Muslims who have been reading Ehrman's writings and are quoting them at Christians as evidence that the Christian Bible has been corrupted, and that Islam is the only religion with a pure set of sacred writings. So there is more at stake here than being the resident religious skeptic on the Colbert Report-much morel As to why Ehrman's works have been so popular, well, I have my own theory. For conservative Christians, Ehrman is a bit of a bogeyman, the Prof. Moriarty of biblical studies, constantly pressing an attack on their long-held beliefs about God, Jesus, and the Bible. Conservatives buy his books if only for the purpose of keeping their disgust with him fresh and to find out what America's favorite skep tic is up to now. For secularists, the emerging generation of "nones" (i.e., the growing number of people who list their religion as "none" even if they are not committed to either atheism or agnosticism), 7 HOW GOO BECAME JESUS Ehrman is a godsend. He provides succor and solace that one need not take jesus too seriously, confirming that religion is the opiate of the masses and that the whole God thing might be just a big mistake. In any event, Ehrman is wortn addressing, since his skill as a tex tual critic is widely acknowledged and his showmanship as a public intellectual can hardly be denied. Such a pity then that he is almost always wrongl In the recent book How Jesus Became God, Ehrman proffers the view that belief in jesus' divinity emerged gradually in a messy process that ebbed and flowed from exaltation to incarnation. If this were so, recognition of jesus as God was not so much a result of divine revelation as it was a human process, a process that struggled for legitimacy even within the church. We, the contributors, do not dispute that christological development took place and the theo logical controversies that followed were indeed messy. We dispute, however, whether Ehrman's account and explanation for this devel opment is historically accurate. Not everything Ehrman says about the origins of belief in jesus' divinity is wrong. Some things are quite true, some things we'd agree with but say differently, some things we'd suggest need better nuance, and other things we contend are just plain out of sync with the evi dence. While Ehrman offers a creative and accessible account of the origins of jesus' divinity in Christian belief, at the end of the day, we think that his overall case is about as convincing as reports of the mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, sitting in a Chick-Fil-A res taurant, wearing a Texan-style cowboy hat, while reading Donald Trump's memoire-which is to say, not convincing at all. But you'll have to read the rest of the book to find out whyl There are several people who need to be thanked for getting this volume out in a quick-fire fashion. First, our contributors, Craig A. Evans (Acadia Divinity College), Simon Gathercole (Cambridge Uni versity), Chuck Hill (Reformed Theological Seminary-Orlando), and Chris Tilling (St. Mellitus College). These fellas did a crack ing good job of writing robust and readable responses to Ehrman over the Christmas break of 2013. They worked to a deadline that was positively draconian and did not disappoint in the quality of the arguments they mustered together. Second, the editorial team at Zondervan, especially Katya Covrett,jesse Hillman, and Verlyn Ver- 8 Edilor's Pr.f.ce brugge, dropped what they were doing in the midst of the snowpoc alypse of 2013 and despite office moves across town, so that we could get this book released simultaneously with Ehrman's book. I think I nearly broke them, but it's turned out to be a cool project in the end. Third, I'm grateful for the good folk at HarperOne for releasing Ehrman's manuscript to us well in advance of its publication. Michael F. Bird 15th afJanuary 2014 The Holy Birthday Feast ofS t. Katya of TpaHiJ PanuiJc 9 ABBREVIATIONS AsTj Asbltry Theo/ogiCIJI joltmal BNTC Black's New Testament Commentary BTB BibliCIJI Theology Bulletin ca. circa Cll Corpus Inscriptionum ludaicarum CITM Christianity in the Making COQG Christian Origins and the Question of God DlG Dictionary ofj esus and the Gospels cd. edition, edited EDEj Eerdmans Dictionary of Early ludaism cds. editors IEl Israel Explomtion lumal JBL journal of BibliCIJI Litemture JSHl loltmal for the Stltdy of the HistoriCIJI jesus JSNT lOl/mal for the Study of the New Testament JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement LNTS Library of New Testament Studies NCCS New Covenant Commentary Series NETS New English Translation of the Septuagint NDIEC New Documents Wltstrating Early Christianity N1GTC New International Greek Testament Commentary NSBT New Studies in Biblical Theology NTS New Testament Studies OGIS Orient;s Grate; lllscriptiones Seledae P.Oxy Papyrus Oxyrhynchus SBLSS Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series SBLSP Society of BibliCIJI Litemtltre Seminar Papers SNTS Society of New Testament Studies trans. translator TT Theology Today WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen :um Nellell Testament ZNW Zeitschri(t fUr die neutestamentliche Wissenscha(t 10 CHAPTER 1 The Story of Jesus as the Story of God Michael F. Bird So exactly "when" did Jesus become God? To be honest, let's recog nize that this is a loaded question as it assumes that there was a time when Jesus was not God at all. Accordingly, for some, like Profes sor Bart Ehrman, Jesus was a human being who lived a human life and died an ordinary human death. It was through the incrementally increasing religious devotion of his followers after his death that he was eventually elevated to the status of a divine being equal to the God of Israel. On a divine-human spectrum, Ehrman has a low view of Jesus. "The Christians exalted him to the divine realm in their theology, but in my opinion," Ehrman confesses, "he was, and always has been, a human."' Suffice to say, Ehrman's view oOesus is low, so low in fact that it could probably win a limbo contest against a leprechaun. Such an approach to the historical origins of belief in Jesus' deity is essentially evolutionary-with beliefs about Jesus mutating over time shaped by various internal and external influences. This view begins, as Charlie Moule said years ago, "with a Palestinian Rabbi and ends with the divine Lord of Hellenistic Saviour-cult."' None of this is par ticularly innovative or new; others have said much of the same thing before. However, Ehrman is the latest proponent to prosecute the idea that belief in Jesus' divinity and worship of him as a divine figure was a gradual process that developed as time went on. 11 HOW GOO BECAME JESUS I have my own view as to "when" Jesus became God. It was not by virtue of the evolution of belief, nor as the result of any ecumeni cal committee; rather, I think I can articulate the answer by way of a quotation from John the Evangelist: "In the beginning Was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). Jesus' deity did not spring forth from the resolution of any church council, but rests in eternity past. So he never became God; he was always God, and he became human, the man Jesus of Nazareth. The testimony of John the Evangelist is that Jesus is the Logos, the preex istent Word of God, Israel's Messiah, Son of God and Son of Man, equal to God, one with the Father, and the Father's agent for the res toration of Israel and for the renewal of creation. John's claim is on any level extravagant and even offensive to the monotheistic sensibili ties of many Jews and Muslims. And yet it is a programmatic claim for the entire gospel. C. K. Barrett, a distinguished British biblical scholar, once said: "John intends that the whole of his gospel shall be read in light of this verse. The deeds and words of Jesus are the deeds and words of God; if this be not true the book is blasphemous."' I entirely admit that such a claim about Jesus' divine identity is a confessional one, borne of religious devotion and justified by the theological claims of a believing community. I admit too that the gos pel of John's precise articulation of the identity of Jesus is disputed, as is the continuity between John'S image of Jesus and other images of Jesus in the rest of the New Testament. Then there is question of whether John the Evangelist is even correct. Is Jesus really God? Whether Jesus of Nazareth really is God, as Christians of all vari eties have historically claimed, can only be answered as a matter of faith. It comes down to whether one believes the early church's testimony to Jesus attested by Holy Scripture that he is the Son of God. I belong to a community that does, and I am not ashamed to identify myself in that way. However, exactly when, where, and why Christians first began to make such elevated claims about Jesus' heavenly origins and divine nature is a historical question and one that can only be answered through a concerted investigation of the evidence. Such an enquiry can be responsibly pursued by mapping out the christological claims and religious devotion of early Chris tian writings in the first four centuries of the Common Era. This is the area in which we wish to critically engage the work of Ehrman 12