How God Became Jesus Quotes

“In other words, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creeds of the fourth century are not purely politically driven and radically innovative statements of faith. They are, instead, contextualized clarifications of New Testament teaching.”
― Michael F. Bird, How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus' Divine Nature—A Response To Bart Ehrman

“This Christology of divine identity shows that Jesus Christ was regarded as being intrinsic to the unique and eternal identity of the God of Israel. The theological reflection of the church fathers did not so much develop this theme as transpose it into a conceptual framework to be readily explored in terms of essences and natures.”
― Michael F. Bird, How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus' Divine Nature—A Response To Bart Ehrman

“The later Logos Christology of the John the Evangelist at the end of the first century and Justin Martyr in the mid-second century represent a genuine development that attempts to flesh out Jesus’ divine functions and to explain them in terms relatable to Greek metaphysics. Yet these developments are based on a logical fusion of Jesus’ preexistent sonship with Jewish wisdom traditions, and so they are not derived from an interface with pagan sources.”
― Michael F. Bird, How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus' Divine Nature—A Response To Bart Ehrman

“early Christians included Jesus, precisely and unambiguously, within the unique identity of the one God of Israel” so that “the earliest Christology was already the highest Christology.”
― Michael F. Bird, How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus' Divine Nature—A Response To Bart Ehrman

“In contrast to the thesis of Ehrman and others that a “high Christology,” which identified Jesus as a fully divine figure, was an evolutionary development, a cohort of scholars has argued for something more akin to a “big bang” approach to the origins of a fully divine Christology.”
― Michael F. Bird, How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus' Divine Nature—A Response To Bart Ehrman

“The first Christians held to the Jewish belief in one God, but this God was now known as God the Father, the Lord Jesus, and (eventually) the Holy Spirit.”
― Michael F. Bird, How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus' Divine Nature—A Response To Bart Ehrman

“So he never became God; he was always God, and he became human, the man Jesus of Nazareth.”
― Michael F. Bird, How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus' Divine Nature—A Response To Bart Ehrman

“Jesus’ deity did not spring forth from the resolution of any church council, but rests in eternity past.”
― Michael F. Bird, How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus' Divine Nature—A Response To Bart Ehrman

“Given this Jewish monotheistic context — giving honorific status to Jesus’ name, identifying Christ as Creator, and making him a recipient of worship — was theologically adventurous, sociologically scandalous, and historically unprecedented as far as I can tell.”
― Michael F. Bird, How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus' Divine Nature—A Response To Bart Ehrman