Bart Ehrman tries to answer this question in his latest book How Jesus Became God. <\/i>He describes eloquently how views about Jesus progressed through intermediate steps. For instance, Mark, the earliest Gospel seems to take an \u201cadoptionist\u201d view: nothing is mentioned about Jesus\u2019s supposedly supernatural birth or pre-existence at all. Rather it seems that Jesus was adopted as God\u2019s son at his baptism (Mk 1:9-11). On the other hand, John\u2019s Gospel, which was the last of the 4 canonical Gospels to have been written, takes a highly exalted view of Jesus. Here Jesus is said to declare that \u201cI and the Father are one\u201d (Jn 10:30), and Jesus is identified at the beginning of the Gospel as the eternal Word (or logos) who participated in creation (Jn 1:1-5). Having said that however, it\u2019s worth nothing that John does stop short of the position that Jesus and God are co-equal however. Stating his own subordinationist view, the third century Christian writer Origen is even able to quote John<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is obvious that we, who maintain that even the sensible world is made by the creator of all things, hold that the Son is not mightier than the Father, but subordinate. And we say this because we believe him who said \u2018the Father who sent me is greater than I\u2019 [Jn 14:28]\u201d (cited in Geza Vermes From Nazareth to Nicea<\/i>, pg 221).<\/p>\n
This would seem to point to a steady movement from \u201clow\u201d Christological views (where Jesus originates \u201cdown here\u201d) to higher ones as the Christian movement moved further from its Jewish roots. However, as Ehrman points out, Paul\u2019s views do not seem to fit this trend, in that, as we shall see, Paul seems to take quite an exalted view of Jesus even though he is thought to have written before<\/i> the Gospels. This is the bit of Ehrman\u2019s book that I would like to focus on in this post. How did Paul view Jesus\u2019s nature? Ehrman\u2019s answer is a little surprising, though apparently not new: Paul thought Jesus was an angel.<\/p>\n
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Paul and Jesus<\/b><\/p>\n
It is quite clear that Paul regards Jesus as a divine or semi-divine being. In Galatians 4:4, Paul makes a special point of mentioning that Jesus was \u201cborn of a woman\u201d, which in most biographies wouldn\u2019t be that remarkable, but would be noteworthy if Jesus in fact had a divine nature. In 1st<\/sup> Corinthians 15:47 Paul contrasts the earthly origin of Adam with the heavenly origin of Jesus \u201cthe first man is from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven\u201d.\u00a0 Romans 8:3 also has Jesus \u201csent in the likeness <\/i>of sinful flesh\u201d, again suggesting that in Paul\u2019s view Jesus was no ordinary man. Romans 9:5 may also point in this direction \u2013 even to the point of hailing Jesus as God – though unfortunately the interpretation of this verse hangs on the placement of a comma. Some translators render it \u201c\u2026is the Christ. The one over all God, blessed forever. Amen\u201d \u2013 which would seem to hail Jesus as a divine being. Others however put God and Jesus in different categories (\u201cThe one over all, God, be blessed forever\u201d). Romans was dictated to a man named Tertius (Rom 16:22) who could have saved everyone a lot of trouble if he had stopped Paul to ask\u2013 though since punctuation had yet to be invented in those days, we will let him off.<\/p>\n What kind of heavenly being was Jesus supposed to be? Like pagans of the time, ancient Jews viewed divinity on a continuum. For example, the divine-human boundary could be crossed. There were divine beings that could descend to Earth (such as the Watchers or \u201cSons of God\u201d in Gen 6:2) as well as humans who could be taken up to heaven. The latter group include Enoch who \u201cwalked with God; then he was no more, because God took him\u201d (Gen 5:24), and Elijah who ascended to heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:11). There were also, of course, God\u2019s divine servants who occasionally came down to Earth – angels. There are two places where Paul seems to talk about Jesus as one of these. In Galatians 4:14, Paul reminds the Galatians of their close relationship with him by saying<\/p>\n \u201c[Even] though my condition put you to the test, you did not scorn or despise me, but welcomed me as an angel of God, as Jesus Christ\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Here Paul seems to refer to Jesus as an angel. An alternative reading of this passage could of course be \u201cas an angel of God, or<\/i> as Jesus Christ\u201d. However, Ehrman cites other New Testament scholars (Charles Gieschen and Susan Garrett) who point out that the Greek grammatical construction being used in this verse means that Paul is in fact using Jesus as an example<\/i> of an angel. A more detailed argument for this is presented in the book.<\/p>\n A second passage is the hymn in Philippians 2:6-11. Ehrman argues that Paul is quoting this hymn from some earlier source. However, even if Paul did not himself compose it, the fact that he quotes it to provide an example of selfless behaviour suggests that he shared the beliefs of the original author. In this hymn, Jesus is described as having been God\u2019s servant, a heavenly being \u201cin the form of God\u201d, who was then \u201cborn in human likeness\u201d. His devotion was such that he even allowed himself to die on a cross, for which he was rewarded by being even more highly exalted \u2013 being given \u201cthe name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend in heaven and on earth and under the earth\u201d.<\/p>\n \n God\u2019s equal?<\/b><\/p>\n It seems that Paul viewed Jesus as a divine entity, but would he have agreed that Jesus was God\u2019s equal? The benediction in Romans 9:5 suggests that this may have been possible (though as we said the evidence for this is ambiguous), but end of the hymn in Philippians also seems to point this way. However, Phil 2:11-16 does not suggest that Jesus was God\u2019s equal before in his pre-incarnational state. In the hymn, Jesus is said to have viewed equality with God as \u201cnot something to be grasped after\u201d but instead chose to become human as a service to God. This suggests that he originally wasn\u2019t God\u2019s equal (the point is that he didn\u2019t ambitiously seek that equality). Moreover, in the hymn, Jesus is said to have been exalted even more highly after his death. How could that be if the two were already equal? You can\u2019t be more exalted than God.<\/p>\n It seems therefore that Paul believed that Jesus was a divine being, originally less powerful than God the Father, who came down from heaven and became human. His reward was to become more exalted than before \u2013 possibly even to equality or near equality with God himself \u2013 but only after<\/i> his death by crucifixion.<\/p>\n\n