Reddit reviews How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee

Just an FYI that Ehrman has a new book out today: How Jesus Became God

I've been reading Bart Ehrman's How Jesus Became God, which is also excellent, and I think, covers a lot of the same ground.

There is NO contemporary evidence (outside the bible) that this Jesus character even existed. Between the apparent "death" of Jesus until Saul of Tarsus' (aka Paul the apostle) Damascus road vision there is no record of Christianity at all. It was Paul that kicked off Christianity. Here is some recommended reading

http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330464426&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Nailed-Christian-Myths-Jesus-Existed/dp/0557709911/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408070120&sr=1-1&keywords=Nailed

http://www.amazon.com/How-Jesus-Became-God-Exaltation-ebook/dp/B00DB39V2Q/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1403984728

>Do you still see the Bible as authoritative?

Oh, god, no. Not in any sense other than "tradition." It's an anonymously pseudopigraphic cobbled-together quilt of racism, sexism, bigotry, and hatred.

>Do you believe in Jesus?

In a historical Jesus, maybe. In a Jesus that never called himself God.

I recommend reading Bart Ehrman's new book that is dedicated to a topic very similar to this.

A great book about a historical perspective of Jesus is How Jesus Became God by Bart D. Ehrman, if you have audible the book is on there too but I listened to his lectures of the same name from “The Great Courses” series Audible hosts and it was pretty amazing. Guy is a historian and does a great job of keeping it in that same perspective. Very enlightening.

• How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee by Bart Ehrman. He provides a much more plausible explanation of who Jesus actually was and who he was not than what you'll hear in chapels.
  
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. The same pattern of the "hero" story repeats itself countless times over thousands of years and through different cultures. The story of Jesus fits the pattern.
  
• And if you want your mind blown, Freedom from the Known. The most influential book I've ever read. It provided me courage to let my own ideas and perspectives guide my worldview. It teaches that it was OK to disagree with a perceived authority.

No problem. I find all of this very interesting.
I recommend reading How Jesus Became God .
Even if you only read the first chapter, I think it has a wealth of information concerning the history of Jesus. His other book "Misquoting Jesus" has some interesting facts, but it doesn't really address the question of "Who was this Jesus guy before they made up a bunch of stories about him" as much as this newer book.

Bart Ehrman is a historian of the Bible. He has many videos on youtube and has written many books about various aspects of the way Christianity developed. The latest that I read was How Jesus Became God, which describes the evolution of the theology of the trinity.