In my last post I laid out a popular theory among some scholars for how
\nthe early Christians came to think of Jesus as divine. Let me review it
\nbriefly. According to this theory, the first followers of Jesus didn’t
\nconsider him to be divine, but only an inspired man. The earliest
\nChristians were, after all, monotheistic Jews who didn’t go around
\ndivinizing people. But as the Christian movement spread into the Roman
\nEmpire, it encountered a very different ethos and was transformed by
\nthat ethos. In the Greco-Roman world, unlike in the Jewish world, the
\nline between humanity and divinity was frequently crossed, not only by
\nmythological heroes like Hercules, but also by flesh-and-blood human
\nbeings like the Roman Caesars. So it was only natural that formerly
\npagan Christians, competing for religious allegiance against a slew of
\nGreco-Roman cults, would divinize Jesus. Therefore, the one who was once
\nonly an inspired human redeemer and teacher became the One who was
\nregarded as divine. (Those who reject classical Christian faith
\ncriticize this move to deify Jesus as an unnecessary and inauthentic
\nadd-on. Real Christianity, they claim, affirms the specialness of the
\nhuman Jesus, but not his deity. See, for example, the prolific writings
\nof Marcus Borg.) <\/p>\n
I mentioned before that this theory has merit
\nas one possible explanation of how Jesus came to be seen as God. It
\nisn’t a crazy theory (like the ones that “expose” Jesus as a space alien
\nor a closet homosexual). One of the benefits of the “Jesus was
\ndivinized under the influence of Greco-Roman culture” theory is that we
\ncan actually look closely at the historical evidence to see if it is
\ntrue or not.<\/p>\n
What is the evidence for earliest Christian belief?
\nUnfortunately, we don’t have newspaper accounts or in-depth interviews
\nof the earliest followers of Jesus. There weren’t many reliable bloggers
\nor videographers in the first-century A.D. either. In fact, we don’t
\nhave any information about the very earliest Christian beliefs beyond
\nwhat we find in the New Testament itself. The earliest Roman and Jewish
\ndescriptions of Christianity confirm what we see in Christian sources,
\nbut they were written at the end of the first-century A.D., decades
\nafter the Christian sources at our disposal. The Gnostic writings, which
\nare sometimes brought forward as witnesses to earliest Christian
\nbelief, were written after most if not all of the New Testament. So they
\nprovide little data for understanding earliest Christian belief, though
\nthey are helpful for our knowledge of second-century and later
\nChristian thought and practice.<\/p>\n
The New Testament alone provides
\nauthentic historical information about the earliest Christians, yet this
\ndoesn’t come in systematic or exhaustive packages. Acts of the Apostles
\nsupplies some clues to the earliest Christian beliefs, but tells only a
\nsmall part of the story of early Christianity. Acts was written maybe
\nfifty years after the events themselves (though with the help of earlier
\nwritten sources no longer available to us). The New Testament Gospels
\ntell the story of Jesus’ earthly ministry, but provide scant evidence of
\nwhat his first followers did and thought after Jesus disappeared from
\nthe scene. (The literary\/historical discipline of form-criticism does
\nprovide some access to this evidence, but its results are often quite
\nspeculative.)<\/p>\n
Some scholars point to the document known as “Q” as
\na helpful source for earliest Christian beliefs. “Q” gets its name from
\nthe German word “Quelle” which means “source.” You’ll even find some
\nscholars who write about several versions of “Q,” going back to the very
\nearliest days of Christianity. In the first drafts of “Q,” which
\nconveniently don’t include verses in “Q” that contradict the “human
\nJesus” theory, Jesus is an inspired teacher of wisdom, but not a divine
\nfigure. The problem with this theory is that it is basically fiction.
\nThere is no document “Q” in existence. It is a scholarly construct. Now,
\nI happen to believe that the theory that Matthew and Luke had access to
\na document that consisted mainly of sayings of Jesus is a plausible
\none. But scholars who think they can peel back the editorial layers of
\nthis theoretical document, and in so doing get back to some authentic
\ncore of Christian belief, have more confidence in the scholarly
\ninventions than I do. In truth, they’re making it all up on the basis of
\nprecious little actual evidence. So even if there was a “Q” document,
\ndiscussion of layers of “Q” and the early “Q communities” provides a
\nsandy foundation for an understanding of earliest Christian belief. (If
\nyou’re interested in the contents of “Q,” check this helpful list<\/a>.)
\n(Photo: A page of a biblical manuscript known as Papyrus 46 [p46]. This
\npage contains portions of Galatians and Philippians, and has been dated
\nto the second century A.D.)<\/p>\n