Summary of Bart D. Ehrman's How Jesus Became God

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 It is difficult to know where to begin when studying the New Testament. Should we start with the Apostle Paul, who wrote more of the books of the New Testament than any other author, or with the Gospels, which were written after Paul but discuss the life of Jesus, who lived before Paul wrote his letters.

#2 Apollonius was a pagan philosopher who traveled around the Roman Empire preaching that humans should not be concerned about their earthly lives and material goods, but should instead live for what is spiritual and eternal. He gathered a number of followers around him who believed he was divine.

#3 The life of the historical Apollonius, a Pythagorean philosopher, is not as important as the legends that sprang up about him and were widely believed among people of the time. His great philosophical insights led many people to believe that he could not have been a mere mortal.

#4 The story of Apollonius is similar to the story of Jesus. He was a philosopher who taught that the human soul is immortal, and that the flesh may die but the person lives on. Not everyone believed him, but after he died, he appeared in a vision to a follower who doubted him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669377894

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Insights on Bart D. Ehrman's How Jesus Became God

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

It is difficult to know where to begin when studying the New Testament. Should we start with the Apostle Paul, who wrote more of the books of the New Testament than any other author, or with the Gospels, which were written after Paul but discuss the life of Jesus, who lived before Paul wrote his letters.

#2

Apollonius was a pagan philosopher who traveled around the Roman Empire preaching that humans should not be concerned about their earthly lives and material goods, but should instead live for what is spiritual and eternal. He gathered a number of followers around him who believed he was divine.

#3

The life of the historical Apollonius, a Pythagorean philosopher, is not as important as the legends that sprang up about him and were widely believed among people of the time. His great philosophical insights led many people to believe that he could not have been a mere mortal.

#4

The story of Apollonius is similar to the story of Jesus. He was a philosopher who taught that the human soul is immortal, and that the flesh may die but the person lives on. Not everyone believed him, but after he died, he appeared in a vision to a follower who doubted him.

#5

The connection between Jesus and Apollonius of Tyana has been debated by modern scholars. But it is not a recent debate. In the early fourth century CE, a pagan author named Hierocles wrote a book called The Lover of Truth that compared the two alleged Sons of God.

#6

The idea that Jesus was divine began to spread after his death. It was not originally thought of that way, however. There were numerous divine humans in the ancient world, and they were not thought of as divine because they were different from the rest of us humans, but because they were humanlike gods.

#7

Christianity arose in the Roman Empire around the year 30 CE. The eastern half of the empire was thoroughly infused with Greek culture, and the common language of the eastern empire was Greek.

#8

One of the greatest Roman poets was Ovid, who wrote the Metamorphoses. In this work, he celebrates changes or transformations described in ancient mythology.

#9

The story of Philemon and Baucis is a beautiful and moving tale of love in life and death, but it is also a tale of gods who temporarily become human, and humans who become gods.

#10

The Greek and Roman belief was that a divine being came into the world because a god had sex with a human, and the offspring then was in some sense divine. This was not the normal Greek or Roman way of understanding how a divine human could be born of a mortal.

#11

The story of Amphytrion and Alcmena is a myth, and it is not clear that anyone actually believed it. However, the idea that a mortal woman could give birth to a child spawned by a god was plausible to many people of the ancient world.

#12

The founder of Rome, Romulus, was said to have been a divine human. He was conceived by a sacred virgin, but something went wrong with her vows. He was reported to have been taken up to heaven by the