Was Jesus Just a Charismatic Preacher? Scholars to Debate Christ's Divinity
Was Jesus just a charismatic preacher or is He indeed God?
This question will be the subject of a debate scheduled for the Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum in Faith and Culture at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary this weekend (Friday and Saturday) and will feature six of the world's top scholars according to a statement from the institution.
Michael Bird, a lecturer in theology at Ridley College, Melbourne, Australia, is expected to debate with Bart Ehrman, a noted New Testament scholar and one of the faculty stars at the University of North Carolina on Friday evening in the Leavell Chapel.
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The debate is expected to be particularly interesting because Ehrman is a former evangelical Christian whose studies led him away from his faith. He regularly references his story in his best-selling books about the origins of Christianity. He is also a frequent contributor to CNN and television documentaries about early Christianity.
Bird, on the other hand is a former atheist whose studies led him to faith in God.
One of Ehrman's recent books is How Jesus Became God, published by HarperCollins. Bird along with four other scholars responded with a book of their own titled How God Became Jesus. It was published by HarperCollins' Christian publishing affiliate, Zondervan.
"How Did Jesus Become God?" was chosen as this year's forum title as a compromise between the books of both scholars which were released on the same day two years ago.
"This year the Greer-Heard Forum will focus on the question of when, how, and why the Christians began to worship Jesus as equal to the God of Israel," said Robert Stewart, director of the forum in a statement Monday.
An elder in a Baptist Church in Cambridge, England, Simon Gathercole, who is also a prominent British New Testament scholar, is expected to lead off the Saturday leg of the Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum.
Gathercole specializes in the connections between the New Testament and literature contemporaneous with it, Christology, the doctrine of the atonement, and other topics according to the seminary.
Larry Hurtado, another internationally renowned New Testament scholar and emeritus professor of New Testament language, literature, and theology at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland will also speak on Saturday.
"We will have six of the world's top New Testament scholars at NOBTS," Stewart said. "I can't imagine any reason for someone interested in Jesus, or theology, or in ministry to miss this opportunity."
The Forum will be livestreamed at to www.greerheard.com.
It is designed to provide a venue in which respected scholars of differing opinions dialogue on critical issues in religion, science, philosophy, and/or culture from their differing perspectives.
The Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum is made possible by the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. William and Carolyn (nee Greer) Heard. It is named in honor of their parents. Mr. and Mrs. Heard also endowed the Greer-Heard Chair of Faith and Culture at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
