Loading...I have been trying to show that one of the oldest understandings of Christ in the early Christian movement — in fact, *the* earliest in my view (and many other scholars), even though later it came to be declared a “heresy” — is that Jesus started out as a human, nothing more, but came to be exalted by God to become his Son, the Lord.
I have long called this particular understanding of Christ an “exaltation” Christology: God exalted Christ to become a divine being. It stands in contrast with a view that I have not dealt with yet, the one that became the dominant one eventually (but which arose later), and “incarnation” Christology, which stated that Christ was a divine being who became human (not a human who became divine), a view best known, in the NT, from the Gospel of John. (Exaltation Christologies are often understood to be “low” because they locate Christ originally here on earth among us mortals; incarnation christologies are correspondingly “high” because in them Christ originally came from heaven with God).
I have argued that an exaltation Christology can be found in very early fragments of creeds and confessions that were later quoted by authors of the New Testament, so that in terms of raw chronology, they were formulated well *before* the New Testament was written. In my previous post I isolated Romans 1:3-4 as just one such case, where Paul quotes a confession that indicates that whereas Jesus was the human messiah from David’s seed, he became the “son of God in power” at the resurrection. This is not exactly Paul’s own view, but it’s close enough that he can quote the confession.
The idea that at the resurrection God exalted Jesus to a new, divine status can be found in other pre-literary fragments quoted by New Testament authors. That is especially the case with the book of Acts. Scholars have long realized that the speeches in Acts are not the speeches that the apostles themselves would have delivered. Whatever Peter may actually have said on the Day of Pentecost (as in Acts 2), no one was taking notes so that Luke would be able to reconstruct it accurately 50 years later when he wrote his account. Where did the speech come from then? Luke made it up.
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If these fragments are at odds with what Luke thinks, why does he include them?
Because they served his purposes, I suppose, within his narrative. He may have well read them as compatible with his own views, as most readers since he wrote have.
Thank you Ehrman but I am confusing on this issue cause when Paul refers high christological statements he never advocate it he just presuppose that his interlocutors know what it means . So if Paul’ time high christology is widespread then it should be very early ?
What are your thoughts Paul’s presupposing high christological statements ?
Probably his own congregations already know his views, and so he can assume they accept them. We don’t know what other Christian communities thought about it all at the time.
Did any of the early Christian writers see any problem with exaltation Christology being somewhat incompatible with the idea that “Jesus died for our sins”? I.e., if Jesus was some variety of immortal supernatural being, he *couldn’t* die at all. And if he was an ordinary human who was risen from the dead, he *didn’t* die for long.
I don’t think so. Non one in antiquity that a *divine* being had to be sacrificed for the sins of others. They sacrified animals — who certainly were not divine!
Could this view of Jesus becoming divine after his resurrection explain some of the odd phrases in Mark which have been changed by later writers (him becoming angry, indignant). His praying in the garden that if it were possible for someone else to take his place, yet ultimately resigning himself to his fate. He is still very much human, yet through his strength of will is able to overcome his doubts and God is so impressed by his actions he gives him divine authority.
Even when curing the blind man it takes Jesus a couple of attempts showing even though Jesus has God’s power working in him he has still not fully mastered it. In some ways you could say Jesus is like Moses, who often gets annoyed at other peoples’ criticism and lack of faith.
Yup!
I wonder what the counter argument is? Surely, this is a big deal–a huge deal! If there’s not a compelling counter argument, why wasn’t it scrubbed out during the assembly of the canon? It’s hard to believe that it was just missed.
My sense is that just about everyone who has ever read the book of Romans has missed it. It was only in the second half of the 20th century that scholars started taking real notice of it; and scholars’ viws on the mater have almost never been communicated to regular ole folk. You just don’t expect this kind of thing unless someone tells you to look at it.
Dr Ehrman, have you read ‘Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ’ by Willian Horbury?
What do you think of Horbury’s thesis about how Jesus became to be worshiped and viewed as a deity?
I”m afraid I have not.
Does the view that Jesus was made “Messiah” at his Resurrection undercut the idea that the historical Jesus might have had some Messianic self-understanding?
thanks
Yes it would. I suppose the people who later said Jesus was made the messiah at the resurrection were not the same ones who claimed he was the messiah before his death; but it could coincide with those who maintained that Jesus *would be* the messiah when the kingdom came, which is what Jesus’ own view was. THey could say: See, he said he would be the future messiah, and he will rule as messiah when he brings his kingdom.
Is this the same as Adoptionism? Or is Adoptionism the view that Jesus was never more than a man? (I suppose I could look this up but for some reason I trust you more than Google University…)
I’d say it’s a form of adoptionism: he was adopted to be the Son of God; in this view the adoption meant that he was actually, in some sense, made divine. One could argue that almost adoptionists thought that in *some* sense Jesus was made divine, since they all appear to have thought he was taken up to heaven to live with God.
I guess I’m trying to figure out how to reconcile the Philippians Christ hymn or poem incarnation Christology that seems quite and the early Romans and later in Acts resurrection exaltation Christology which also appears early ( in Romans). Can you help me professor? Is it competing philosophies, communities or tracks? Can it be reconciled or is it separate camps? Phillippians vs. Romans?
It can certainly be reconciled, simply by saying that Christ came from above and “became man” (Phil.) and the man he became was a descendant of David (Rom) who after his death was exalted to an even higher status that he had had before (Phil) and at that point even made the Son of God (Rom).
Very interesting.
What about Jesus in Mark’s gospel? Is that also an exaltation Jesus?
That would explain his behavior before and during the crucifixion.
My sense is that Jesus’ baptism is the key in Mark. The Gospel begins with it, he is called the Son, and he then begins to manifest divine power. In a next post I’ll talk about how exaltation gets moved *backward* in Jesus’ life as time goes on: first it was his resurrection, later Xns thought his baptism; later his birth; later before his birth, etc.
Technical blog question: normally I receive e-mail notifications of all new posts on the blog. When I received today’s notification, I realised it was the first one I’d received for a few days. I checked back in my e-mails, and sure enough, the last notification I received before today’s was on January 26.
My subscription is not due to renew until April, and notifications are switched on in my profile. Any idea what’s going on?
It’s a tricky and rather faulty feature that we’re working on. I too get them inconsistently. Most members don’t get them at all! What we’re moving toward is a weekly newsletter that announces the five posts from that week to allow them to see which ones they may want to know about (in case they don’t already know!). There will be some other nice bits in the newletter as well.
Thanks for replying, Bart. Strange thing is that it’s worked perfectly up to now. Anyway, it seems you’re already on the case.
I have long noticed how these speeches in Acts sound like exaltation theology. 1. I assume Acts became part of the canon because too well-established, and mostly orthodox otherwise? 2. Totally unrelated: I was reading Matthew 2 which has the strange “star” that leads the Magi right to Jesus’ house. Some ancients thought of stars as angels in heaven, as suggested in verses like Rev. 1:20, 12:4, Job 38:7, etc. Was this Matthew’s belief perhaps, and explains why he thought a star/angel could lead the Magi right to the house? Angels play an important part in his birth story.
1. Yes, probably. But in antiqutiy, as now, almost *no one* realizes there is any discrepancy between what these speeches say and what orthodox Christians believe; 2. Possibly! And an interesting idea. I suppose the problem is thatthe sources that speak of stars as angels do not think of them as flying near the ground, but as residing way up there in the stratosphere….
Bart, do you use the names Jesus and Christ interchangeably or do you have some criteria to decide which to use and what is it? Thanks!
Typically, like most scholars I suppose, I try to use Jesus for the name of the historical figure during his life (between his birth and his death) and Christ for the being who allegedly existed before Christ (pre-incarnate) and after his resurrection (glorified)
I don’t think it makes any sense to for early christians to say Jesus was made the messiah only after the resurrection.
They may themselves have only started calling him the messiah after the resurrection but the earliest theology must be that he was the messiah during his lifetime.
My view is that commonsense is a good place to start when doing history, and then one needs to consider evidence and probability. My view is that some of Jesus’ earliest followers (disciples during his life) did indeed see him as the messiah, but that this view came to be radically disconfirmed at the crucifixion, since public humiliation and execution was the last thing that was to happen to the messiah in Jewish expectation.
In a previous post you argued that the creed in 1 corinthians 15 is suspect because it is referenced no where else in the NT. However I was reading Paul’s speech in acts 13 and he says in v. 31 “and for many days he appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now his witnesses to the people. ”
Could one argue that this is Luke’s reference to this creed?
I’m not sure how you’re interpreting what I said? I’ve never suspected that it was something Paul did not write. Are you saying that I suspect what he says is not historically accurate? That’s true, I do suspect it’s not. He is repeating a story he had heard about Jesus’ appearances, and you will find similar stories in Matthew, Luke, John, and Acts. These stories aren’t referring to the creed but the creed is referring to these stories.
Yes, I was refering to the historical accuracy of the creed. I’m glad you gave me the answer based on what I meant to say!
Thucydides lived about 460 years before Luke, so citing him as an authority of how ancient people remembered things is faulty. Likewise, around the time of Thucydides lived a pair of Greeks named Plato and Aristotle. Each of them were aware of mnemonics, memory devices like “snafu”, where each letter represents a word in a sentence. There’s also a recent example of a Vietnam POW who memorized the names of 256 fellow POWs. And of course, those who practice fundamentalist Christianity are familiar with the Greek word for fish (IXOYE), where each letter stands for the first letter of the words, Jesus Christ Son (of) God Savior.
We know Thucydides is no expert on things 500 years after his birth. We know mnemonics had been around for 500 years when Peter made his speech. We know that with time, people can learn very lengthy word lists that are even devoid of meaning. We also know that early Christians knew and used mnemonics, one of which remains in popular use today. But all the scholars agree that it was impossible to know what Peter spoke 50 years afterwards? It was possible.
Prof Ehrman,
In my circles and I believe yours as well (because I think I recall Dr. Mike Licona laying out such similar claims in one of your debates with him), it is very common for believers to assert that – had Jesus not been raised from the dead, there wouldn’t have been anything more to Christianity. Do you think they are confessing an exaltation Christology without consciously realizing so? When of course they could have done just fine with the spirit leaving the body at death like the Docetic view of the Christ?
I think they are saying that if Jesus had died like everyone else and not come back to life (like everyone else) no one wold have had any reason to “believe in him.” I think that’s right. (Though I don’t think he literally came back to life; but they certainly thought he did)
Prof Ehrman,
Please, permit a follow-up.
But there were clearly some early Christian groups like the Ebionites, Docetists, Gnostics etc.who didn’t have the ‘bodily resurrection’ or ‘a divine Jesus’ as a premise for their faith. And I believe, they absolutely thought themselves as Christians in their own right; a view which was of course different from what became the ‘Orthodox’ position of the Christian Church. So my point is people’s belief may not necessarily be tied to evidence or a ‘divine logic – i.e. because he got raised from the dead, then, they must believe’, but in most cases the largely accepted teaching/opinion(orthodox position).
People evidently believed Jesus in other ways apart from his divine nature or bodily resurrection. I believe these 2 pointers became the triumphant views and as such creates the temptation that that is what has always been to faith in Jesus.
So please, don’t you think the ‘Divine nature’ and ‘resurrection’ views can largely, if not ONLY be contingent on an Exaltation Christology especially when these same adherers of the view that – “if Jesus had died like everyone else and not come back to life (like everyone else) no one would have had any reason to “believe in him”? In their minds, even if Jesus had even been divine and had not met the criteria of ‘bodily resurrection’, it would have meant nothing to them.
Your reaction, please. Thank you
Yes, I agree there were Christians who believed in something other than a bodily resurrection (e.g., a “spiritual” one). My view is that this was a *later* development, that the very earliest Christians were apocalyptic Jews for whom life after death was necessarily bodily, so if Jesus is alive (again), it had to be in the body. They came to thihk he was divine. Later converts became convinced that if he was a divine being, he was not living in *flesh* but in spirit, like God himself. And so they adopted a different view. That view is fund among various groups of Gnostics, Marcion, etc. (Though not Ebionites, at least as they are normally understood today)
Thank you Prof Ehrman,
Please do you consider Christians who base their faith solely on the bodily resurrection as ‘Exaltation Christologists’ (I don’t know if there is such an expression but I hope you get what I mean)? (This was the heart of my earlier questions)
No, not necessarily. Many incarnationalists believe that the resurrection proves Jesus was God before he died, and so they believe because of the resurrection as well.