An Agnostic's Look at The Bible - Part XI (Those Pesky Heretics)

This particular post will be less about what's in The Bible and more about how third and fourth century (and later) theologians attempted to reconcile the inconsistencies and contradictions about Jesus' nature in The Bible. 

By the Second Century it was already established among the vast majority of Christians that Jesus was God. But in what sense was he God? That's where the debates and the branding of other theologians as heretics comes in. The Gospels also make very clear that Jesus was a man, but in what sense was he human? How did his humanity and divinity coexist in one person? Was he half God and half man? Was he God who just appeared to be a man? Was he a man who was "promoted" to Godhood? I want to make clear that the Gospels and Epistles do not make any of this clear. And the answers that eventually led to the doctrine of The Trinity were by no means self-evident. Assumptions made by theologians were just as often based on what they thought was common sense or to avoid infelicitous outcomes. Here are a few of the possible "solutions" to the nature of Jesus that eventually were deemed heresies:

• Adoptionism stated that Jesus did not pre-exist before his birth but was "adopted" as the Son of God at his Baptism (or resurrection, or Ascension)  due to his perfect, sinless life. His reward was resurrection and adoption into "the Godhead". This was put to rest around 200CE, but it seems to me that it has solid scriptural basis. 
• Docetism adherents believed that Jesus only appeared to have a physical human form. They believed that matter was inherently evil and therefore God couldn't have had a physical body. 
• Apollinarianism stated that, although Jesus had a physical, human body, his "nature", or mind, was wholly divine.
• Arianism has been latched onto by modern day non-Trinitarians to support their belief that the early Christians were not Trinitarians. Arius didn't teach that Jesus was not God, but that Jesus, God the Son, was created first by God the Father and that the rest of the universe was then created by the Son. The main difference between Arianism and the version of Trinitarianism that the majority of theologians were adhering to was that the Trinitarians believed that the Son and the Father were "co-eternal", i.e. there was never a time when the Son did not exist, while the Arians taught that the Father pre-existed the Son. This dispute was what spurred the Council of Nicaea. Arians for hundreds of years constituted the majority of Christians outside of Rome and Byzantium. It effectively died out when Charlemagne accepted Catholic Christianity. 
• Nestorianism was a branch of early Christianity wherein their founder Nestorius taught that Mary gave birth only to Jesus' human nature. They argued about the term "Mother of God", preferring the title "Mother of Christ".  Nestorius' followers fled persecution relocating to the Persian Empire where they further developed the idea that Jesus, although one person, had both a human and a divine nature.  Nestorians flourished under the Persians and Nestorian churches continued to exist even after the Muslim conquest of Persia. 
• Monophysites believed that Jesus had only one nature - that his humanity was absorbed by his divine nature. They were the majority in the border regions of the Eastern Roman Empire and had competing bishops and patriarchs when the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and the surrounding area. 
• Monothelitism was a response to Monophysitism, holding that Jesus had two natures, human and divine, but one "will" - divine. 
• Sabellianism teaches that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one and the same, but are different modes or expressions of a unitary God.

Eventually the doctrine of The Trinity emerged with earlier understandings later being branded as heretical. In it Jesus is described as fully God and fully human as regards both his nature and his will, not half God/half human, not a human who was "promoted" to God. As "God the Son" he existed for as long as God the Father existed and was somehow begotten while having always been begotten. The three "persons" of The Trinity are all equally God, yet distinct. It's complicated, and I doubt that many Christians understand the explanations that their theologians came up with. 

Non-Christians and non-Trinitarian Christians sometimes mock the belief, wondering who Jesus was talking to when he prayed to God, among other things. But do any supernatural religious beliefs make any sense? 

Part XII

An Agnostic's Look at The Bible - Part X (Short Musings On How Jesus Became God)

In the previous installment I touched upon the change in focus forced upon the followers of Jesus when he was killed, rather than becoming the God-anointed conqueror. As I have pointed out previously, the New Testament is not one seamless narrative, but the work of multiple authors that differ not only in perspective, but were penned at different points in time. Because of this one can see an evolution in the way Jesus' nature was viewed by his followers. 

One of the titles bestowed upon Jesus was "Son of God". While now we interpret that literally - son, a child, a first generation descendent - but the phrase had long held a figurative meaning by Jesus' time. In Genesis and Job the term "Sons of God" apparently refers to angels. The King of Israel is "The Son of God" as is Israel itself at times. The earliest traditions that were enshrined in the Gospels indicate that Jesus became the Son of God. At first it was upon his supposed resurrection as a reward for his faithfulness to God. Later the honor was bestowed on him at his baptism; still later at his birth as seen in Matthew and ultimately, as claimed in John, he was a pre-existing Son of God even before his birth. Running parallel to the evolving timeline of the sonship of Jesus there was a steady change in what being "The Son of God" meant. It went from being a great honor, like the ancient kings received, to a semi-divine status like an angel, to divine status in the same category as God, to being equal with God in authority, to being identical with God. (I recommend How Jesus Became God by Dr. Bart Ehrman for the long version with citations and appropriately placed commas). 

Of course, since these incremental changes in perception are all recorded in different places in the Gospels and Epistles, what we are left with is a lot of inconsistencies. I'll leave it to another installment to review some of the attempts by theologians to resolve these inconsistencies, but I'll change lanes for a bit to discuss why there are even any inconsistencies to address.

There is a misconception, not only among Christians, but among society in general, that Christianity was a united entity with recognized leaders and organization from Jesus' death onwards. The Catholics maintain that this entity "The Church" was led by Peter the Apostle and his successors, later known as The Popes. The Eastern Orthodox disagreed about the primacy of the Bishops of Rome (the popes) but otherwise agreed that there was a continuity from Jesus to his apostles, to their followers and on to their day. Protestants and other offshoots mostly attempted to reform The Church or return it to its First century roots, but didn't dispute the commonly held belief of a united early church. Even among modern day skeptics there is a belief that a monolithic early Christian Church "edited" The Bible so it would reflect their prejudices and/or political leanings. In fact it was a chaotic collection of competing versions of Christianity with central control only emerging gradually. 

There was no group tasked with maintaining the integrity of the different Gospels, epistles and tracts being copied and recopied and spread around. Nothing prevented copyists, who were usually not professional scribes, from making errors in transcription or from making intentional alterations. This was in addition to the divergent points of view contained in the original writings. Pseudonymity (signing the name of another, more prominent name to one's own writing) was common since acceptance of a Gospel was based almost exclusively on who supposedly wrote it, not whether it made any sense. Several of the epistles attributed to Paul were almost certainly not written by him, including Ephesians, Colossians and both epistles to Timothy. There is no evidence that any of the four canonical Gospels were written by the men whose names are on them. Different regions had their favorites and several writings that are now considered apocryphal were once considered on par with what is now considered scripture. By the time there was a central authority that could have decided what was scripture and what wasn't, all that they did decide was which books would be included in the official canon of scripture without any attempt to harmonize among the various books. An exception to this was Marcion. The leader of an alternate strain of Christianity, Marcion was the first to put together a "canon" of scripture. His "New Testament" included the Gospel of Luke and the (heavily edited) epistles of Paul. It was mainly as a response to him that the group that became the Catholic Church compiled its own list, which we still have today. 

It was only after this point that theologians began to attempt to harmonize the various fragments and make sense of the competing narratives, focusing mainly on the nature of Jesus, eventually formulating the doctrine of The Trinity.

Start at the beginning: Part I