Divinity of Jesus

I'm taking a class on the New Testament writings”just an intro course”and I've been reading through some of the analysis provided by Bart Ehrman (New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 3d ed.). Let me post some relevant parts here before proposing my question:

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In fact, we know from the tantalizing but fragmentary records that numerous other persons were also said to have performed miracles, to have calmed the storm and multiplied loaves, to have told the future and healed the sick, to have cast out demons and raised the dead, to have been supernaturally born and taken up into heaven at the end of their life. (21-22)
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Apollonius lived at about the time of Jesus. Even though they never met, the reports about their lives were in many ways similar. At a later time, Jesus' followers argued that Jesus was the miracle-working Son of God, and that Apollonius was an impostor, a magician, and a fraud. (20-21)
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John appears to have been one of the "prophets" who arose during the first century of the Common Era [A.D.] in Palestine. Somewhat like Theudas and the Egyptian, he predicted that God was about to destroy his enemies and reward his people, as he had done in the days of old. And like them, he was destroyed by the ruling officials. (255)
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Indeed, one interesting piece of evidence that the author of the Fourth Gospel [John] modified his traditions of Jesus' sayings in conformity with his own views is that it is nearly impossible to know who is doing the talking in this narrative, unless we are explicitly told. For John the Baptist, Jesus himself, and the narrator of the sotry all speak in almost exactly the same way, suggesting that there is only one voice here, that of the Gospel writer. (265)
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Now, this last quote is important, because it leans toward the writings of John being false 'recollections' of what really happened. The effect this has is that it means most of the references of Jesus being God, and God's Son, and the Christ (a subject 'drilled home' in John, so to speak) suddenly become mute”or at least extremely quiet”, which leave us with the other parts, namely Jesus' ability "...to have performed miracles, to have calmed the storm and multiplied loaves, to have told the future and healed the sick, to have cast out demons and raised the dead, to have been supernaturally born and taken up into heaven at the end of their life." As Ehrman points out, people claimed to be able to do things like this weren't that uncommon, making Jesus just one of another many. Then, the later tradition that goes back to apply words to Jesus in John's Gospel must come from some where.What historical aspect of the Jesus situation could explain why he was deified into one with God? With so many prophets in the day, what about Jesus and his followers brought about the following cult? There's been a lot of people since then who have been highly-regarded; why didn't they get a super-mega religion named after them?For this post, I'd just like to say that I want to focus on the historical aspects behind this matter, and not the supernatural ones”so no posts saying 'Jesus really was God, that's why'. We must assume that there is a reasonable, realistic, real-world and non-supernatural-invoking answer to this question.JonEdited by AdminModulous, : title change : divination->divinityEdited by Jon, : Removed message to admins.

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In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist... might come to the conclusion that each species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species. - Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _En el mundo hay multitud de idiomas, y cada uno tiene su propio significado. - I Corintios 14:10
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _A devout people with its back to the wall can be pushed deeper and deeper into hardening religious nativism, in the end even preferring national suicide to religious compromise. - Colin Wells Sailing from Byzantium

Much like with evolution, most of the evidence here exists in the current texts--the things that still exist, that we still can have access to.Anyway...Jon

I wish you'd link us to not only the authors, but also the writings that you claim as evidence. It's really not helpful of your argument to present nothing but endless pages of off-putting text through which one must search to find the minuscule parts that you have misrepresented/misinterpreted as supportive of your view.Also, no one said John was the only human alive with those view points about Jesus, so I don't see how pointing out the others changes whether or not John's Gospel is a misrepresentation of what happened or not.The point, after all, being presented here is that there was a small group of people who believed Jesus was God (one of whom was John), and so John (and likely others of this group) instead of trying to honestly depict what might have happened in Jesus' life tried to change history (or just write his own) in order to push his particular view points. Stop it. Unless jar says this, you need to quit putting words in peoples' mouths. And it is all irrelevant, anyway, because the issue being discussed is John and the authenticity of it, and moreso why it came to be written and lead to Jesus being deified. You're acting like a fool. Just because other people agreed with John doesn't mean what he wrote was accurate in any way. It doesn't make his account right.Much like John, you are putting words into peoples' mouths that they never say.Jon

What is the difference?

Luke. Some Jews did. Completely untrue. 'Nother falsehood. More malarkey. No, sorry, wrong again.Jon