How Jesus Became God

@sonship said
@FMF

Yes. Good enough.

I am not asking you what is "good enough" in your opinion. How can justify the specific claim that you made that James White's academic expertise and qualifications are "equal" to Professor Ehrman's?

@sonship said
What is Ehrman doing that wasn't tried with "The Passover Plot" a popular book of the 60s? Or with "The Mistakes of Jesus" around the same time. Or "The Divinci Code."

You are likening Professor Bart Ehrman's work to Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code"?

@sonship said
Popular cash cow books giving people reason to doubt the Gospels regularly hit the circuit.

Does this - to your way of thinking - include the audiobook cited [and provided] in the OP?

How much of it have you listened to?

@sonship said
Open question:

The Greek New Testament records that the apostle Thomas confessed to Jesus - My Lord and my God when he was presented with the test to put his fingers into the wounds of the resurrected Jesus.

[quote] And after eight days, His disciples were again within and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in the midst and said P ...[text shortened]... n texturally ?

What proof is offered that this verse was a much latter fictionalized addition?

Seems like most Christians seem to understand the concept of Jesus "abiding" in people and do not believe that those people and Jesus are literally one and the same.
Yet many seem not to be able to understand the concept of God "abiding" in Jesus in a similar manner.

Seems like most Christians seem to understand the concept of being able to "see Jesus" in the works some people do and do not believe that those people and Jesus are literally one and the same.
Yet many seem not to be able to understand the concept of being able to "see God" in the works Jesus did in a similar manner.

Perhaps these concepts can be best understood through the following:

John 14
9Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10“Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. 11“Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.

Clearly Jesus makes a distinction between Him and God.
Clearly Jesus expects Philip to be able to "see" the Father in the works that He does with the Father abiding / working within Him.

Jesus explains a similar concept here

John 12
44And Jesus cried out and said, “He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me. 45“He who sees Me sees the One who sent Me.

Clearly Jesus makes a distinction between Him and God.
Clearly Jesus expects His followers (believers) to be able to "see God" in Him. This is similar in concept to where Jesus expects Philip to "see" the Father in the works that He does with the Father abiding / working within Him.


It's not surprising that Thomas would echo these concepts in uttering the words, "My Lord and my God!".
Thomas is merely echoing the concepts Jesus explained in John 12 and John 14.

It does not mean that Jesus and God are literally one and the same.

@FMF

Is Professor Bart Ehrman just a "pop sceptic" or is a distinguished New Testament scholar who is both more qualified and more knowledgable than you on these matters? Is James White a "darling pop" something-or-other too if he has, as you claim, "equal education and training" to Professor Bart Ehrman?

Dr. Ehrman is evaluated as being of two sides. Some things he writes are for the scholarly audience. Other things he writes are for popular assimilation. I don't fault him for wanting make a good living writing popular books.

But when debating he was asked which Bart Ehrman was going to be debating. He has a reputation of having a pop side and a more scholarly side in which he would not dare say some things he does when he is in his pop, sell a lot of books mode.

"What has really happened I think is that is there are two Bart Ehrmans that are on display." - Craig at about 5.01

William Lane Craig discusses Bart Ehrman
YouTube Part 1

That's Part 1 of 6.
Interested viewers can locate the other 5.

@ThinkOfOne

Seems like most Christians seem to understand the concept of Jesus "abiding" in people and do not believe that those people and Jesus are literally one and the same.
Yet many seem not to be able to understand the concept of God "abiding" in Jesus in a similar manner.

Christ in His form as "life giving Spirit" blends Himself with the receiver of Christ in the way of union of His Spirit with the regenerated human spirit.

"But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit." (1 Cor. 6:17)

I think you have no experience but can only discuss what you think "most Christians" think.

When we say "Let Jesus into your heart" that is not sentimental talk. It is really the case that Christ the AVAILABLE Person can make His home in your spiritual and psychological being in a miraculous blended way.

The human spirit and the Holy Spirit who is Christ and God as "life giving Spirit" become ONE mingled and united spirit within that receiver.

" ... the last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45b)

"But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit." (1 Cor. 6:17)

This is definitely tied to His resurrection. Without Christ's resurrection and indwelling as the "life giving Spirit the entire Gospel is meaningless.

IF there is no resurrection Jesus from the dead, and IF there is no Jesus coming into those whom have been justified through His redemption, the Gospel is useless.

No resurrection? You might as well throw the Bible away, live it up, whatever. For tomorrow we die and rot.

His indwelling is in-separately related to His resurrection.

In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in You.

- Jesus while He walked on earth (John 14:20)

Test yourselves whether you are in the faith; prove yourselves. Or do you not realize about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you, unless you are disapproved?

- Paul while he walked on earth and Jesus was in Heaven and in Paul and in the Corinthian Christians (2 Cor. 13:5)

Is James White a "darling pop" something-or-other too if he has, as you claim, "equal education and training" to Professor Bart Ehrman?

Thank God a man or woman can receive the Lord Jesus in the privacy of their home without having a Phd. there to explain what and what not to believe.

Look, I respect Ehrman. I would even take a class with Ehrman. So there.

But I think he's mad at James White because White believes what Ehrman says he USED to believe. And cannot roll over him and push him around as it plainly seen in the two way exchange where they questioned EACH OTHER.

Toe to Toe!

YouTube&t=84s

@sonship said
@ThinkOfOne

Seems like most Christians seem to understand the concept of Jesus "abiding" in people and do not believe that those people and Jesus are literally one and the same.
Yet many seem not to be able to understand the concept of God "abiding" in Jesus in a similar manner.

Christ in His form as "life giving Spirit" blends Himself with t ...[text shortened]... walked on earth and Jesus was in Heaven and in Paul and in the Corinthian Christians (2 Cor. 13:5)

Didn't think you'd actually address the points of my post. Instead you talked around the points by ignoring what Jesus actually said and pointing out what Paul said.

Like usual, you didn't disappoint. You've repeatedly shown that what Jesus actually said or didn't say has little to no meaning to you.

@sonship said

Is James White a "darling pop" something-or-other too if he has, as you claim, "equal education and training" to Professor Bart Ehrman?

Thank God a man or woman can receive the Lord Jesus in the privacy of their home without having a Phd. there to explain what and what not to believe.

Look, I respect Ehrman. I would even take a class with Ehrman. So t ...[text shortened]... y questioned EACH OTHER.

Toe to Toe!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Mp4v8VQwQ&t=84s

What is your objection to the book cited in the OP?

@sonship said
Thank God a man or woman can receive the Lord Jesus in the privacy of their home without having a Phd. there to explain what and what not to believe.

This does not explain your claim that White is a person "with equal education and training" to Ehrman.

Are you now seeking to distance yourself from having said that?

Do you see yourself as "a person with equal education and training" to Ehrman"?

@FMF

Are you now seeking to distance yourself from having said that?

My first reply to this questions was "Good enough".
My second and last reply to your repeating the question is "Good enough."

Do you see yourself as "a person with equal education and training" to Ehrman"?

No. I do not have an advance degree NT textural criticism.

Are you an hyper elitist that only those with his or White's training have any right to trust their lives to Christ ?

Now, to the matter of the valuable skill of textural criticism.

There are Bible you can get which in the side notes indicate where variants in translations occur. No big secret. The Emphasized Bible I have let's the reader know on every page of the whole Bible where variants in ancient manuscripts so that you will know.

I find in them nothing effecting the major tenets of my faith.

Jesus was angry at the leper verses Jesus loved the leper.

Does the whole Gospel undergo MAJOR alteration because one scribe made a typo on that one word ? A skeptics daydream is that because of it she should discard the entire New Testament.

Your next post can offer a sample of a variant in a verse which causes a total reinterpretation of one of the following major tenets of the Christian faith:

1.) There is one God.
2.) God became a man in Jesus Christ
3.) He lived a perfect life as a human
4.) He died a redemptive death for our sins
5.) He was raised from the dead on the third day
6.) He is alive, exalted, Lord of all, and those who believe in Him have the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
7.) He is physcically to return to the earth to have an kingdom.
8.) There will be a last judgment.


Gather up your collection of copyist typos of the thousands of NT manuscripts and produce 1 to 3 of your TOP examples of variant readings which ALTER any of these major points.

@sonship said
No. I do not have an advance degree NT textural criticism.

Are you an hyper elitist that only those with his or White's training have any right to trust their lives to Christ ?

You made the claim that White is a person "with equal education and training" to Ehrman. But you definitely seem to be back peddling now.

I have not read a single word ever written by Ehrman - at any point in his life - that contests White's or your - or, in fact, anyone's - "right to trust their lives to Christ".

@sonship said
Now, to the matter of the valuable skill of textural criticism.

What objection do you have to the content of the book "How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee"? The audio version can be accessed from the OP.

@FMF

You made the claim that White is a person "with equal education and training" to Ehrman. But you definitely seem to be back peddling now.

You might as well keep going on and on about Ehrman's education.

You haven't produced a variant that I asked for which is a major alteration of the central teaching of the New Testament.

It was pointed out that on interview after Ehraman has done his speale and lest the interviewer astounded he was finally asked in essence " Well then what do you think the Gospels really originally said ? " Ehrman replies in essence "What do you mean?"

It ended up with Dr. Ehrman saying the New Testament originially said pretty much what we know them to say today!

After all that fanfare and hype he lets down the eager audience to just admit what NT scholars have known for years. The NT we have today is about 98%-99% essentially what was written by the writers.

So after thousands of variant readings from thousands of copied manuscripts the effect of human error has been nil on the original documents.

Oh well. I'm sure Oxford Press royalty checks to Ehrman will keep him in good stead for years to come.