How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee

by Bart D. Ehrman

Passover seder, as it came to be called—was not simply celebrated out of antiquarian interests. Many Jews hoped and even anticipated that what God had done before, long ago, under Moses, he would do again, in their own day, under one of their own leaders. Everyone knew that uprisings could occur when nationalistic passions reached a fevered pitch. So this was one time of the year when the Roman governor of Judea, who normally lived in the coastal city of Caesarea, would come to Jerusalem with troops, to quell any possible riots. The Sadducees, who were willing to cooperate with the Romans in exchange for being able to maintain the worship of God in the temple as God had instructed in the Torah, were equally invested in keeping the peace.

Religious dogma-status quo complex. Messiah as inherently anti institutional

If Jesus never preached in public that he was the future king, but this was the charge that was leveled against him at his trial, how did outsiders come to know of it?11 The simplest answer is that this is what Judas betrayed.

Judas' chief sin as betraying esoteric teaching?

But none of the Gospels indicates that Jesus arose that morning before the women showed up. He could just as well have arisen the day before or even the day before that—just an hour, say, after he had been buried. The Gospels simply don’t say.

Likely Bart Strikes Back against resurrection story harmonization gymnastics

we cannot know whether Jesus was given a decent burial, and we cannot know, therefore, whether his tomb was discovered empty. But what can we know? We can know three very important things: (1) some of Jesus’s followers believed that he had been raised from the dead; (2) they believed this because some of them had visions of him after his crucifixion; and (3) this belief led them to reevaluate who Jesus was, so that the Jewish apocalyptic preacher from rural Galilee came to be considered, in some sense, God.

Will CWCs online persona come to be thought of as an extension of himself? Eternal life in the digital world?

What is striking—and very strange indeed—is that while Peter is actually talking to Jesus, he sees another Jesus being crucified. So there are apparently two Jesuses here, at the same time.

Curious parallels to "double Jesus" meme AND "Jesus 2"