Did Christians Invent Jesus' Teachings?

Did Christians Invent Jesus' Teachings? (vIDEO)

Welcome to the home of Episode 179 of the Misquoting Jesus Podcast with Bart Ehrman. Below, you can watch the entire episode, read its description, and see links to related resources.

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episode description

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This episode explores a central question in early Christianity: did the earliest followers of Jesus believe he was divine, or did that idea develop later? The discussion focuses on how different New Testament texts present Jesus in strikingly different ways, revealing a progression in Christological belief over time.

The episode highlights how the Gospel of Mark, likely the earliest Gospel, portrays Jesus as a human figure who becomes God’s son at his baptism. In contrast, later texts like the Gospel of John present Jesus as pre-existent and fully divine. This shift suggests that beliefs about Jesus’ nature evolved significantly within the first decades after his death.

A key question addressed is whether Jesus himself claimed to be God. The episode argues that in the earliest sources, he does not. Instead, titles like “Son of God” or “Messiah” initially had more human connotations and were only later interpreted in divine terms.

The conversation also explores how theological debates and community conflicts shaped these developments. As Christianity spread, different groups promoted different understandings of Jesus, leading to disagreements that would later be formalized in creeds.

The main takeaway is that the divinity of Jesus was not a fixed belief from the beginning, but the result of a dynamic and contested historical process reflected within the New Testament itself.