Response to the Response: How God Became Jesus « Christianity in Antiquity (CIA): The Bart Ehrman Blog

Earlier this week I reviewed Bart Ehrman’s new book, ‘How Jesus Became God’, and noted that there was already a response book to it.  Now Ehrman has posted a response to that response on his blog.  He posted it publicly (ie not paywalled).

My publisher, HarperOne, asked me to write a 1000-word response to the book that was written in response to How Jesus Became God.  As you probably know, the book is called, somewhat expectedly, How God Became Jesus.  I have toyed with the idea of giving a chapter-by-chapter response here on the blog.   I’ve grown a bit cold to the idea, though, since I’m not sure every chapter of their book really needs a response.  I may respond to a couple of the chapters.  In the meantime, here’s one response you can read that is, interestingly, written by Daniel Kirk, a professor of NT at the evangelical Fuller Theological Seminary, about one of the better chapters in their book: http://www.jrdkirk.com/2014/04/24/god-became-jesus-part-1-review-evangelical-response-ehrman/

What I give below is the overall response to the book that I wrote for my publisher.  We had thought about publishing it somewhere, but I’ve decided to give it here instead.

via Response to the Response: How God Became Jesus « Christianity in Antiquity (CIA): The Bart Ehrman Blog.

I think the main thing to understand about Ehrman’s response is that it’s basically a note on the differences between a historical investigation and a statement of faith.  Ehrman’s book is historical, and it sounds like the response book is a statement of faith.  Apples and oranges.