Did Jesus’ Disciples Think He Was God?

Episode Outline:
0:00 Was Jesus really understood to be God from the beginning?
1:15 Divine beings and humans in the ancient world: a much more fluid boundary
4:44 How Greek, Roman, and Jewish cultures imagined divine-human overlap
7:30 Emperors, heroes, and exalted mortals in antiquity
10:32 Divine humans in Jewish thought: Enoch, Moses, and heavenly powers
15:31 Prophets, divinity, and where they fit in the spectrum
17:56 Monotheism, henotheism, and why ancient Judaism was more complex than many assume
20:56 What the Gospels actually say about Jesus’ divinity
23:36 Mark, John, and radically different pictures of who Jesus is
25:47 Romans 1 and the earliest idea that Jesus became divine at the resurrection
29:18 Philippians 2 and Paul’s more complex view of preexistence and exaltation
32:21 Why the New Testament does not yet teach the later Nicene view
37:43 Listener Q&A: divine names, Jewish conversion, Jesus quoting Scripture, chapter divisions, and Bible translations
53:29 Final summary: how Jesus’ divinity developed in its ancient context

Episode Description
One of the central tenets of many denominations of modern Christianity is that Jesus is God. The Nicene Creed describes him as “of one being with the Father”...but just how old is this idea? If you asked Jesus’ disciples if he was a human or God, would they have affirmed his divinity, or accused you of blasphemy? And if Jesus was divine, then was he considered to be God made flesh, a human who was turned into a divinity, a "super-human" with some divine features…or what?

Also watch these episodes:

Did Jesus Actually Claim to be God?
Did Jesus Actually Claim to be God?

Can the New Testament Possibly Be True?
Can the New Testament Possibly Be True?

This episode, Megan asks Bart about:

-Divine kingship in ancient Egypt, instances of human divinization in ancient Mesopotamia, and then of course in ancient Greece a whole host of figures who were born to Zeus and a mortal woman--is this the kind of atmosphere that Jesus was living and preaching in?

-In terms of Greek and Roman religion, how was it possible for someone to be both divine and human?

-How did the Roman emperors figure into this? Were they considered divine while still alive?

-How were prophets generally viewed by ancient Jews? Were they considered fully human, or did any of them have divine characteristics?

-Were there any points in ancient Judaism when YHWH was considered to have an equal? In other words, was there some kind of precedent for the elevation of Jesus to godhood?

-Do any of the gospels say anything about Jesus’ divinity, or lack thereof?

-How do the gospels of Mark and John differ on the point of Jesus’ divinity?

-Do Paul’s other writings show a different idea of Jesus’ divinity?

-How do these views of Jesus as the Son of God differ from what a modern Christian might understand it to mean?