More from Questioning the Bible

In Questioning the Bible, author Jonathan Morrow examines skeptical challenges to the Bible's authority, especially the New Testament. In this blog I want to cover what he has to say about how the early message of Jesus's resurrection and other core doctrines were transmitted among early Christians.

Keep in mind, he says, that the ancient world was predominately an oral culture. Today we wonder how it's possible for such a culture to transmit reliable history. We often think of the telephone game, but it was certainly not like that at all. Disciples of a rabbi were required to memorize his sayings, and people are capable of memorizing a tremendous amount of material. Some Muslims have memorized the entire Koran, for example.

There were four S's used by early followers in order to maintain true history and correct core doctrines until they were written down. The first is Scriptures – Christians sought continuity in what God had done in the Old Testament and what God was doing now through Jesus the Messiah. So they read the Hebrew Scriptures of public worship services. Therefore, the foundational documents of the earliest Christians were the Hebrew Scriptures acting as a theological baseline. Second were summaries, or what we would call creeds. Early Christians memorized and recited doctrinal summaries alongside the Hebrew Scriptures when they gathered for worship. This made it easy for people to remember key elements of doctrine and history. Third was singing. When Christians gathered, they sang their theology and hymns to show their devotion to Jesus (see Philippians 2:5-11 as an example). Finally, the last "S" has to do with sacraments. Baptism and the Lord's supper were practiced on a regular basis, and they both pictured the basic elements of the salvation story as core theology. These creeds, hymns, and practices predated the writing of the New Testament documents.

How early was Jesus being worshiped as God? We see from Paul's letter to the Philippians that Jesus was being worshiped as God within 20 years of his crucifixion. We also see that belief within early Christian hymns. It is also found in early Christian summaries – note 1 Corinthians 8:4-6. This is a powerful passage because Paul has taken the famous Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4 and included Jesus as part of the divine nature. Outside the Bible, Morrow notes that a Roman governor, Pliny the younger, wrote: "They [the Christians] were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang an alternate versus a hymn to Christ, as to a God." Then there's the 1 Corinthians 15 creed, which I mentioned in the last blog. This statement may go back to within one year of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

What's the point of all of this? Many skeptics say that exalted beliefs, proclamations, and even worship of Jesus emerge gradually over time. But the truth is far different. Devotion to Jesus as divine erupted suddenly and quickly among his first-century followers.

More to follow.