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Addressing Sako Gekchyan's answer for the Quora Question: "Historically, how and why did Jesus of Nazareth come to be thought of as God?"


Sako Gekchyan:

Ok this is going to be long so bear with me because it's not an easy answer...

Perhaps I can offer an explanation outside of a Trinitarian bias. Contrary to what many Christians believe, The early followers of Jesus were devout Jews who followed all the commandments. The only one who seems to have opposed the continued following of the law was the apostle Paul who never even met Jesus in person to begin with. Considering the fact that the early disciples were Jews, The idea that their master was God in the flesh would've been considered both blasphemy and idolatry.

I'm going to disagree with a claim made by a previous commentor, while the book known as the Didache is believed by most scholars to have been influenced by the apostles, it is completely devoid of any mention of Jesus as God. The only titles it seems to bestow upon Jesus are that of the Lord and servant of the Lord. Some might argue that the word Lord indicates that they were addressing Jesus as God, but the title of the Lord was used to describe everyone from the master of the house to one's teacher. Buddha was often addressed by his followers as Lord.

What most Christians deny is that there was much diversity and a range of differing opinions in the early church. Contrary to popular belief, The church was not a cohesive unit that had a consensus of beliefs. Jesus own apostles were in disagreement with Paul for his refusal to acknowledge the importance of the Jewish laws. 

Now we can get into how Jesus actually came to be God. As we've addressed previously, there were two groups of Christians in those early days, One group was led by the mostly Jewish apostles and the other group was the Pauline Christians who followed the teachings of the self proclaimed apostle Paul. The majority of Christians theology comes from Paul. You have to dig and do some research to reconstruct the theology of the original Jewish Christians led by Jesus and his brother James. 

The Jewish Jesus movement was one among many messianic movements, these people were patriotic Jews who believed that their leaders could bring an end to Roman occupation of the land. What set Jesus apart from other messiahs at this time was his pacifism, other leaders tried to start violent uprisings in order to remove the Romans from the land, Jesus seems to have seen the folly in this and so he advocated a type of civil disobedience similar to that used by Martin Luther King and Gandhi. So this brings us back to the theology of the original Jewish Christians, they believed that Jesus was the Messiah who would liberate Israel from it's a oppressors and usher in the messianic age which would bring about peace on earth for the whole of humanity. 

If you read the books of James and Jude in the New Testament, you'll be surprised by what isn't in there. They say nothing about Jesus being divine, nor do they say anything about him being a sacrifice for sins. They seem to have believed that Jesus was going to come back in their generation. If you read the Didache which I mentioned earlier, you'll find that it has the most humanistic portrayal of Jesus. It only addresses Jesus as the servant of the Lord, it seems to emphasize his role as a teacher which is what the disciples would have seen him as. An interesting thing to note is that these early Jewish Christians also didn't believe in a virgin birth.

Now by the second century there was a clear divide between the Jewish Christians who were known as the Ebionites and the Nazarites, and the gentile churches established by Paul. Paul traveled around the Roman empire preaching his brand of Christianity to the different groups of people he encountered. Many of his converts were Greeks, romans, Persians and other groups of people in the empire. The one thing that should be understood is that Paul didn't believe Jesus was God either, while the idea of Jesus dying for our sins originated with him he didn't see Jesus as God himself but as one sent by God. Paul saw Jesus as "the second Adam"; The most perfect human being who ever lived. According to Paul the obedience of Jesus canceled out the spiritual death that had come as a result of the disobedience of Adam in the garden. So while Paul saw Jesus as the most perfect human being, he was still far from God.

The key to understanding how Jesus became god lies with Paul's target audience. Many of the people that Paul converted were pagans and as we know from history? old traditions diehard. Many of these pagans followed mystery religions that revolved around savior God's who were born from virgin mothers and possessed supernatural powers. This pagan influence can be seen most heavily in the Gospel of John where Jesus turns water into wine; a miracle that was often attributed to the god Dionysus. The transformation of Jesus into God was a gradual process that coincided with the original Jewish Jesus movement being eclipsed and later persecuted by the growing number of pagan Christians who seem to have brought their pagan traditions into their new faith.

What finally sealed the deal on the issue was the Council of Nicaea. After Constantine legalized Christianity in the empire in 313 C.E., he sought to create a unified church in the empire. At this time there was still a cornucopia of diverse Christian beliefs and a hot topic of debate was the divinity versus the humanity of Jesus Christ. Constantine called the Council of Nicaea to settle the issue once and for all, it was at this council that the doctrine of the Trinity was officially made orthodox thus cementing Jesus as God. It isn't until recently that groups emerged to challenge this doctrine.

I hope this helped.

Me:

You are correct in that the word "Lord", or more accurately the Greek word Κυρίου (Kyriou) has multiple uses - masters, one in authority, etc. However, the point is that one of the uses of this word is indeed reference to God Himself. This is proven in its use to refer to God in the Greek Translation of the Old Testament, the LXX or Septuagint. Use of the word Kyriou to refer to God is evident. This became the way that Jesus was addressed in the majority of the New Testament works, including James and Jude. 

Most Christians however would not use Jesus being addressed as Kyriou in order title to seek to establish the divinity of Jesus. Your assertion that Paul did not see Jesus as divine is unfortunately incorrect (see Phil 2:6, Col 1:15). 

Second Adam theology does not in anyway prove that Paul did not see Jesus as divine. The point with Second Adam theology is to rightfully emphasis the cosmic effect of Adam figures. Just as sin came into the world in a cosmic way because of Adam, so grace and righteousness came into the world in a cosmic way because of Jesus. 

A division between Paul and the rest of the apostles is mostly overplayed. Was there unity in thought between Paul and the other apostles? The answer is yes. Besides the Book of Acts, Peter himself writes about Paul in 2 Peter which illuminates the coherence in thought with regards to how Peter saw the Pauline epistles: "And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters." (2 Peter 3:15-16). 

2 Peter 1:1 by the way, also clearly highlights how Peter saw Jesus. In the Greek, Peter addresses Jesus as Theou (from which we get Theology) and not Lord (Kyriou):
"Συμεὼν Πέτρος δοῦλος καὶ ἀπόστολος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῖς ἰσότιμον ἡμῖν λαχοῦσιν πίστιν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ σωτῆρος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ·"

"Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ"

My last point however is that you seem to miss the whole point of Trinitarian Theology. Yes, one of its features is to emphasis the divinity of Jesus but its more important feature is to emphasis also the existence of the Holy Spirit.

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