Richard Carrier slams Ehrman's latest book

[MrMacSon]

The full passage that maryhelena has quoted (less the ... bit)

Jesus is now the Son of God for his entire life, beginning with . . . his beginning. One could argue, in fact, that this has pushed the moment of exaltation so far back that here we no longer even have an exaltation Christology, a Christology from “down below.” For here, Jesus is not portrayed in any sense as beginning life as a normal human who because of his great virtue or deep obedience to the will of God is exalted to a divine status. He starts out as divine, from the point of his conception.

Ehrman, Bart D. (2014-03-25). How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (p. 244). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

His "conception" could be taken as a literary construct; based on the prior sentences, if one didn't 'know' Ehrman's 'position'

[neilgodfrey]

The full passage that maryhelena has quoted (less the ... bit)

Jesus is now the Son of God for his entire life, beginning with . . . his beginning. One could argue, in fact, that this has pushed the moment of exaltation so far back that here we no longer even have an exaltation Christology, a Christology from “down below.” For here, Jesus is not portrayed in any sense as beginning life as a normal human who because of his great virtue or deep obedience to the will of God is exalted to a divine status. He starts out as divine, from the point of his conception.

Ehrman, Bart D. (2014-03-25). How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (p. 244). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

His "conception" could be taken as literally based on the prior sentences, if one didn't 'know' Ehrman's 'position'

If you read Ehrman's book you will see that he argues Jesus was human and historical. It was his followers who attributed divinity to him -- and this myth was developed in some of the gospels. There is no contradiction in any of these statements quoted piecemeal from the book.

[stevencarrwork]

On Ehrman changing his mind.

IIUC Ehrman started working on How Jesus became God a number of years ago. I.E. he wrote Did Jesus Exist after he had already began working on How Jesus became God . If so references in How Jesus became God to Ehrman having changed his mind while researching this book probably do not mean that he changed his mind between writing Did Jesus Exist and How Jesus became God

Andrew Criddle

http://ehrmanblog.org/jesus-as-god-in-t ... r-members/

Ehrman dates his change of mind to about April 2013.

Did Jesus Exist was published in 2012.


Incidentally, Ehrman has also come around to accepting Carrier's view that the first Christians did not believe Jesus physical body had been resurrected.

Reading Ehrman is like reading Carrier, but with a time-delay of a few years.

[John T]

On Ehrman changing his mind.

IIUC Ehrman started working on How Jesus became God a number of years ago. I.E. he wrote Did Jesus Exist after he had already began working on How Jesus became God . If so references in How Jesus became God to Ehrman having changed his mind while researching this book probably do not mean that he changed his mind between writing Did Jesus Exist and How Jesus became God

Andrew Criddle

http://ehrmanblog.org/jesus-as-god-in-t ... r-members/

Ehrman dates his change of mind to about April 2013.

Did Jesus Exist was published in 2012.

Incidentally, Ehrman has also come around to accepting Carrier's view that the first Christians did not believe Jesus physical body had been resurrected.

Reading Ehrman is like reading Carrier, but with a time-delay of a few years.

Not so fast!

"So yes, now I agree that Jesus is portrayed as a divine being, a God-man, in all the Gospels. But in very different ways, depending on which Gospel you read."...Ehrman

[stevencarrwork]

"So yes, now I agree that Jesus is portrayed as a divine being, a God-man, in all the Gospels. But in very different ways, depending on which Gospel you read."...Ehrman

So you are claiming that Carrier says the Gospels are not different from each other?

[Ulan]

Yeah, I suspect Carrier is saying something along those lines. However, Ehrman has already stated in 'Did Jesus Exist' that he thought early Christians might have regarded Jesus as a pre-existing angel, and since he is using Paul for that, it suggests that Ehrman -- at the time he wrote 'Did Jesus Exist' -- had already decided that the "from above" Christianity was an early expression of Christianity. So where is this 'reversal'?

I don't think so. Three gospels out of four do not mention, not even suggest, any pre-existence. That notion appears to have started by Paul (& the author of 'Hebrews') and was not accepted by many Christians for a long time (evidence: the Synoptic gospels, 1 Peter, James, Ebionites).
We do not have evidence the belief of pre-existence appears before Paul.

This probably depends on how you define "christology". You could argue that Mark applies an even higher christology than Paul. The man Jesus is unimportant to him. The words used are that of possession, the spirit of God himself possesses the man Jesus at baptism and leads him until his very end, at which time the spirit leaves again. So here, Christ is God himself. The rest is what Paul said in 1Cor, that Jesus is the last Adam, the last one to have died, and the first human spirit to live forever.

So is this "high" or "low" christology? As I said, I don't see any difference to Paul here, who was not interested in the man Jesus either, other than as prototype of the new human.

[Stephan Huller]

Exactly. Ulan is too smart to be at this forum. Probably retired and bored. But it is amazing to hear and be reminded of (a) a smart person who (b) has no pre-existent agenda actually deal with the issues raised by people at this forum who are (c) are of limited (or at least lesser) intelligence and (d) have a palpable agenda. Let's hear it for smart people at the forum!

There is a 'right answer' lurking in the dark here. Having a pre-existent agenda or an ax to grind is an impediment not an advantage in discovering the truth. Why doesn't everyone follow Ulan in approaching the material with an open mind and not allowing agendas to shape how we see the evidence?

[maryhelena]

Yeah, I suspect Carrier is saying something along those lines. However, Ehrman has already stated in 'Did Jesus Exist' that he thought early Christians might have regarded Jesus as a pre-existing angel, and since he is using Paul for that, it suggests that Ehrman -- at the time he wrote 'Did Jesus Exist' -- had already decided that the "from above" Christianity was an early expression of Christianity. So where is this 'reversal'?

I don't think so. Three gospels out of four do not mention, not even suggest, any pre-existence. That notion appears to have started by Paul (& the author of 'Hebrews') and was not accepted by many Christians for a long time (evidence: the Synoptic gospels, 1 Peter, James, Ebionites).
We do not have evidence the belief of pre-existence appears before Paul.

This probably depends on how you define "christology". You could argue that Mark applies an even higher christology than Paul. The man Jesus is unimportant to him. The words used are that of possession, the spirit of God himself possesses the man Jesus at baptism and leads him until his very end, at which time the spirit leaves again. So here, Christ is God himself. The rest is what Paul said in 1Cor, that Jesus is the last Adam, the last one to have died, and the first human spirit to live forever.

So is this "high" or "low" christology? As I said, I don't see any difference to Paul here, who was not interested in the man Jesus either, other than as prototype of the new human.

The gospel of Mark does not have a 'high' christology i.e. it does not have a 'from above', preexistence, Incarnation Christology:

• Ehrman: How Jesus Became God: Jesus as Son of God at His Baptism
  
  Brown (Raymond Brown) does appear to be right that at some times and places, after the initial belief that God had exalted Jesus at his resurrection, some Christians came to think that the exaltation had happened before his public ministry. That is why he could do spectacular deeds such as healing the sick, casting out demons, and raising the dead; that is why he could forgive sins as God’s representative on earth; that is why he could occasionally reveal his glory— he was already adopted to be God’s Son at the very outset of his ministry, when John the Baptist baptized him.
  
  The Baptism in Mark
  
  This appears to be the view of the Gospel of Mark, in which there is no word of Jesus’s preexistence or of his birth to a virgin. Surely if this author believed in either view, he would have mentioned it; they are, after all, rather important ideas. But no, this Gospel begins by describing the baptism ministry of John the Baptist and indicates that like other Jews, Jesus was baptized by him...
  
  ...If one always has to ask “in what sense” is Jesus divine, for Mark, Jesus is divine in the sense that he is the one who has been adopted to be the Son of God at his baptism, not later at his resurrection.
  
  Ehrman, Bart D. (2014-03-25). How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (p. 239). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

[Bernard Muller]

This probably depends on how you define "christology". You could argue that Mark applies an even higher christology than Paul. The man Jesus is unimportant to him.

That's what I said here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1413&start=20#p31976
If we speak of christology about the strictly human/earthly Jesus, Paul's one was rock bottom. And certainly Mark's Christology on the same human/earthly Jesus is way higher than Paul's.

The words used are that of possession, the spirit of God himself possesses the man Jesus at baptism and leads him until his very end, at which time the spirit leaves again. So here, Christ is God himself.

Not quite God, but the Son of God.

The rest is what Paul said in 1Cor, that Jesus is the last Adam, the last one to have died, and the first human spirit to live forever.

I would rephrase that as such: "the last Adam, the first human to die and live forever as a spirit".

So is this "high" or "low" christology? As I said, I don't see any difference to Paul here, who was not interested in the man Jesus either, other than as prototype of the new human.

Jesus as the last Adam is a metaphor used, with many other arguments, in order to "prove" the future heavenly/spiritual bodies for humans (1 Corinthians 15:35-54). It is not a key christological point of Paul.

Cordially, Bernard

[Roger Pearse]

There are grave risks to anyone who spends his time trying to show that his fellow men are wrong. He will first think them wrong; then obstinately wrong; then deliberately wrong; then less than honest; then sometimes dishonest; then incessantly dishonest; and so on, down the spiral of hate.

Well, I think Carrier sometimes saves time by starting out from the get-go near the bottom of the spiral. ...

Today, yes. But once he was better.