Two New Books on Christology from Mike Bird

In this episode of Nazareth to Nicaea, Mike Bird talks about his two new books on early Christology:
Jesus among the Gods: Early Christology in the Greco-Roman World (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2022).
(with Bart Ehrman), When Did Jesus Become God? A Christological Debate (ed. Robert Stewart; Louisville, TX: Westminster John Knox, 2022).
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[@elliotwalton6159]

I finished reading "Jesus among the Gods' thanks to some post surgery recovery. It's safe to say this book will inform every other book I read about Second Temple and NT moving forward. How you can corral all that information and make it both readable and entertaining speaks volumes to your gifts as both a scholar and writer. There are times when ST and NT literature veers into the realms of the best SC-FI, but you managed to keep things down to the earthly plains.

[@earlychristianhistorywithm8684]

Eliot, thanks, best book review so far!

[@elliotwalton6159]

@@earlychristianhistorywithm8684 😁

[@IsaacSimmonds]

Very much Interested in reading 'Jesus among the gods' at some point!

[@earlychristianhistorywithm8684]

It's a fun read!

[@elliotwalton6159]

May I pose a query? I listened to a long interview with Robyn Faith Walsh on her book 'Origins of Early Christian Literature.' Her thesis, apparently not new, is that the gospels were written by Greco-Roman literary elites independent of early Christianity. Your recent book, though on Christology/Ontology, points to my (and other's) main contention. Why would a hypothetical Greco-Roman literary elite essentially invent the 'gospel' on the subject of a failed messianic Jewish prophet (as opposed to a Jewish elite using the literary conventions of the day)? I'm tempted to read Walsh's book, but I am sympathetic to the reviewer who asked the same frustrated questions in the end which Walsh avoids, at least in this volume. According to the reviewer, and the interview I watched, the 'authors' did not reference the OT in their composition, but Paul and their own culture! According to Paula Fredricksen (whose books I've read since From Jesus to Christ in the 1980s) there is great (and silent) discontentment within Biblical Studies, and many prefer to steer the NT towards the Classics and away from the BSL and have nothing to do with any faith-based scholarship completely. As Allison said in a recent interview "There comes a point when the theologian has to become a historian." Fair enough; I love a good secular technical commentary. But if your end point is simply 'Christianity was invented by Roman elites with no deep interest in either the LXX or Second Temple literature', what 'scholarship' have you accomplished? I'd be interested in any thoughts you might share (having written your own book on composition) or direction to a proper panel discussion. At present, the only talk is on Christian skeptic channels who aren't interested in any meaningful Q&A which I find existentially disheartening.

[@earlychristianhistorywithm8684]

I haven't read Walsh's work.

[@soloencristo1]

eternally begotten?