Iesus Deus: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God Kindle Edition

Well sourced book. Lots of food for thought; he mentions that with many gods whether they died or not was “left open”. This is true in the Christian tradition also, as Mark’s gospel is very compatible with the swoon theory if only in literary form (not necessarily that historically Jesus only swooned, just that the written story can be read that way whether it happened or not). Robert M Price makes the case for this in many of his books, especially The Case Against the Case for Christ.

Many scholars of religion in the early 20th century tried to explain Christianity as largely the product of ideas borrowed from paganism that were grafted onto Christianity's Jewish roots. Their work was often so sloppy that it discredited that whole line of enquiry for decades (except, unfortunately, in fringe-history echo chambers). The scholarship of the past half-century or so emphasizes the thoroughly Jewish background of early Christianity, and while in general that is the right approach, Litwa contends that the aversion to pagan comparisons has gone to illogical extremes. It's impossible to be in contact with a culture without being affected by it in some way, and Greek culture in the last centuries BC was a juggernaut that profoundly affected every society in the Mediterranean. Thus, scholars for several decades have agreed that Judaism in Jesus' time was so deeply influenced by Hellenistic culture that it's artificial to draw a hard distinction between the two. Yet scholarship on early Christianity still shies away from any comparison to polytheistic religions. Litwa does not argue that Christianity borrowed ideas from pagans, but that both Jews and polytheists ascribed certain traits to divine beings and that early Christians applied many of these traits to Jesus—hence the implication in the subtitle, that Jesus fits a common "Mediterranean" conception of divinity. In proving his point, Litwa focuses on literary motifs found in early Christian and pagan texts.Litwa is careful to avoid drawing the kinds of lazy parallels found in early 20th century scholarship, as well as the dishonest hairsplitting practiced by centuries' worth of Christian apologists. For example, he outlines the traditions surrounding the deaths and deifications of Heracles, Asclepius, and Romulus and points out how they differ from the resurrection stories about Jesus. But, as he says, the pagan stories don't need to have followed the exact same pattern as those about Jesus in order to have shaped the way early Christians thought about resurrection.In some cases Litwa's results feel novel (at least to me), as in his treatment of Jesus' divine birth. Luke's story of the Annunciation avoids any remotely physical intercourse between God and Mary, unlike so many Greek myths about gods fathering semi-divine sons with human women—myths that Jews and Christians ridiculed. But the pagan/Christian contrast isn't as strong as it first appears. Litwa points out that the Platonist tradition had rejected those same myths long before Jesus' time, and yet there was a story that Plato himself was fathered by Apollo. Plutarch, writing in the same time period as the gospels, reconciled those two Platonist beliefs by devising a theory of divine conception by pneuma (air or spirit) that avoided physical intercourse in a manner not far removed from that in Luke. Litwa even suggests a plausible explanation for the disturbing behavior of the child Jesus in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas—that Jesus, like the amoral pagan gods, and like Yahweh in many of the biblical texts, punishes affronts to his own honor whether or not the punishments seem fair.There is much more to be said on this subject than Litwa says, especially because any question about early Christianity is likely to be argued down to the tiniest minutiae, so I don't fault him for limiting his scope. But his thesis raises a fairly basic question: when were these motifs applied to Jesus? How early did Christians come to think of Jesus as a god? It's reasonable to expect Litwa to suggest at least a tentative answer, but he only touches on the question indirectly. On a less significant level, Litwa has been accused by Larry Hurtado, whom he criticizes in the book, of mischaracterizing the scholarly field. But even if he has, his basic point remains valid: Christianity was a product of a collection of interrelated cultures that spanned the Mediterranean, and its relationship with all those cultures should be examined. I hope that future scholars will examine those relationships as carefully as Litwa does.

This book is probably for scholars and not the casual reader wanting to beef up his knowledge of how the story of Jesus developed. There are many other great books out there that can do that. If you are not a scholar, (and most of us aren’t) then reader beware. You need some background in the ancient Mediterranean culture and history to fully appreciate Litwa’s book. Also, be prepared to be driven to the dictionary for word meanings. Most can be found with a Duckduck or Google search! As always, I like to include some positive things too. Litwa is a great speaker and his interviews can be found on YouTube. He is extremely intelligent and presents his information verbally better than in writing (at least to me). Hope this helps some.

I would like to express my thanks to Fortress Press for providing me with a review copy of Iesus Deus: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God by M. David Litwa.If I could simply say one sentence about this book, I would say that this is one of the best books I have read on a long time about the deification of Jesus of Nazareth and I could not recommend it more highly. In short, I loved this book and I am so excited to read what Litwa produces next on deification. Dr. M. David Litwa teaches Greek at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where he also received his PhD. In addition to Iesus Deus, he is the author of We Are Being Transformed: Deification in Paul’s Soteriology (2012) and Becoming Divine: An Introduction to Deification in Western Culture (forthcoming).One of the major problems Litwa points out is that within the current climate of Biblical scholarship is that any sort of comparisons made between Jesus and other Mediterranean mythology, legends, and stories is almost certainly accused of presenting “parallelomania.” Naturally, some of these parallels between Jesus and figures (such as Mithras and Attis) have rightly been given harsh criticism, but Litwa contends that some of the parallels between certain stories of Jesus do have strong connections to the matrix of the Mediterranean world. Litwa makes a case by case base that different stories associated with Jesus share common ideas closely associated with other Greco-Roman Mediterranean stories about various gods (both lower and uppercase “g” gods).Litwa breaks his research into six chapters as follows:“Not through Semen, Surely”: Luke and Plutarch on Divine Birth“From Where Was this Child Born?”: Divine Children and the Infancy Gospel of ThomasDeus est iuvare: Miracle, Morals, and Euergetism in Origen’s Contra Celsum“Light Was That Godhead”: Transfiguration as Epiphany“We Worship One who Rose from His Tomb”: Resurrection and DeificationThe Name Above Every Name: Jesus and Greco-Roman TheonymyThe main thrust of Litwa‘s arguments is that the process that lead to the deification of Jesus was not solely influenced by Second-Temple Judaism (as so many have stressed for the past two decades), but rather contained features of Hellenistic influence as well. This is not to say (despite what popular writers have suggested), that the emerging Christian faith simply sought, stole, and applied various aspects of Greco-Roman Pagan myths has they saw fit but rather they used common language, images, and symbols found throughout the Mediterranean as a means to crystallize their beliefs about Jesus.Litwa selects his material carefully and applies them to the various stories about Jesus in an extremely scholarly fashion. One of the greatest strengths with Iesus Deus is that Litwa is just as quick to point the differences within the stories of other Mediterranean stories in comparison to Jesus, just as much as the similarities. Another particularly strong point of Litwa‘s work is his criticism of the current terminologies and definitions in use when writing about divinity within the ancient world. Litwa brings incredible nuance to his work and has forced me to rethink how I use the lower and upper case “g” when writing about God, gods, and goddesses in reference to ancient ideas of divinity.On Litwa‘s writing style, he expresses a wealth of information in a manner that is accessible to a wide range of readers, from students to scholars and even laypeople. He does not grant Christianity or any other ancient faith tradition any sort of privilege and is extremely unbiased in his approach to the sources in question. Given its ambitious task, Litwa succeeds in convincing readers that Hellenism played some sort of influential role within the development and understanding of Jesus as the Christian deity.This is a fantastic book and a game changer for the future of Christological studies.

got to be open minded to accept the author's view.