How Jesus became Became God - Bart Ehrman

 

https://www.bartehrman.com/

Standouts - 

• scholarship and references
• personal insights about faith journey from fundamentalism - Moody Bible Institute to Wheaton I believe - seems the classic deconstruction journey to more liberal forms of Christianity to exiting the establishment.
• putting Jesus in the context of other apocalyptic prophets of his era. I think this stood out for me because I had always thought Jesus' resurrection ushered in apocalyptic thinking for his followers, but actually to understand that certain Jews of that era (and others?) were immersed in the idea that the world was soon to end makes many of Jesus' teachings - especially the more radical ones, clearer. 
• the Resurrection. He does a fantastic analysis of the different viewpoints surrounding how people could interpret the event - from mass hallucinations to contradictions in stories. Interesting he parallels the many supernatural sightings that have occurred - especially the Mary visitations. He talks about how dismissive protestants are of them - despite numerous interesting eyewitness accounts in various places. Protestants who are quick to defend the validity of the resurrection of Jesus testimonies penned decades after the fact. 
• The gospels - I never realized (or forgot) that the gospels were written after Paul's epistles! Paul's epistles are the first things penned some 20 years after Jesus' death. The first gospel (Mark) was put down between 40-60 years after Jesus' death. That explains a lot about the discrepancies between the various gospels and the way that oral tradition can be a difficult resource for an accurate journalistic account which the gospels are not. 
• the above two bullets are believed through an act of faith just as not believing is an act of faith - he references Pascal and does a great analysis of how his theory may be a bit of an oversimplification. 
• "The history of my own personal theology is a mirror image of the history of the theology of the early church. In early Christianity the views got "higher and higher" with the passing of time, as he became increasingly identified as divine. Jesus went from being a potential (human) messiah to becoming the Son of God exalted to a divine status at his resurrection; to being a preexistent angelic being who came into the earth incarnate as a man; to being the incarnation of the word of God who existed before all time and through whom the world was created, to being God himself, equal with God the father and always existent with him. My own personal beliefs in Jesus moved in precisely the opposite direction." 

The above section from the epilogue I found to be quite a fascinating synopsis and an example of the way the author weaves his story in with his research.