Why God

When Did Christians Believe that Jesus was God?

When Did Christians Believe that Jesus was God?

There’s often debate (& some major religions like Islam & Mormonism are founded partially on this belief) that Christians only believed that Jesus was God later, and that it was not an early tradition. This section seeks to correct that, including dating of passages that point to it being a very early tradition, even by contemporary critics who aren’t Christian as well as early non-Christian sources .

Chart comparing New Testament passages associated with belief in Jesus’ divine status, including traditional Christian and contemporary critical dating ranges, early embedded traditions, and categories of divine-status language.
Comparison of representative Christian and contemporary critical dating ranges for major New Testament passages associated with belief in Jesus’ divine status, including embedded traditions, Yahweh-language, worship themes, and explicit divine-identification passages.

What Early Non-Christian Sources Say About Jesus’ Followers

Infographic comparing early non-Christian sources such as Pliny, Lucian, Tacitus, and Celsus that describe Jesus’ followers worshiping him or treating him as divine.
Hostile and non-Christian sources from the first and second centuries independently confirm that Jesus’ followers were publicly known for worshiping him and treating him with unusually high reverence.

The Megiddo Mosaic, dated to AD 230, was an ancient church found in 2005 that includes the statement in tile form that the table for communion is dedicated to “the God Jesus Christ”.