You're making a lot more work for me than what I was planning for.
If you're familiar with the work of Larry Hurtado, that might make it easier.
Good evening, my friend. Unfortunately, no, I am not familiar with Larry Hurtado. A glance at Wikipedia does identify him as a genuine scholar, so we are at least starting out on a good foot.
Sorry, I didn't separate my ideas clearly enough. One idea is that the practices of the early Christians that looked like worshipping Jesus, not as a god but in ways compatible with some Jewish thinking of the time, were taught to them by Jesus himself. I don't remember any examples from Hurtado, but maybe for example like praying to Jesus, and addressing him as "God" without thinking that he actually is God.
We really need those specific examples. It is really the only way I can understand the general idea of what you are referring to.
In response to praying to him like God and calling him God not meaning they believe him to be God makes no sense to me. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, has feathers like a duck...it's a duck.
There is some kind of concept of the presence of God in Jewish thinking.
Quite true. Judaism teaches that there is the "divine spark" in all of us. But we would never go around praying to each other, or calling each other God.
It is quite possible that I'm just not understanding you here. I really need specific examples so that I can wrap my head around what you are trying to say.
Another idea, completely separate from that, is that in the gospel stories Jesus is as much of a god as any Greek or Roman god, with more supernatural powers, and more power and authority over human lives, than any Greek or Roman god. Not that he was saying that. Just that he is presented that way in the stories. That, along with the worshipful practices that Hurtado writes about, is part of what created the dilemma for early Christian thinkers of trying to explain how Christians could believe and do what they did without it being two gods.
I do see some evidence of this in the gospel of John. But I don't think its origins are Jesus. I am of the opinion that the Greek Christians who came after Jesus, and viewed the world through the lens of their former paganism, were inclined towards this deification, and inserted it into the text.
I wasn't talking about the Jewish heartland.
Then I misunderstood you. I thought you were advancing the idea that Jesus himself was teaching these ideas. Jesus, and his disciples, were all Judean, not out in the diaspora, not Hellenized.
I was talking about the author of John, and the fathers, using Greek philosophy, more specifically the logos, to try to explain how Christians could be worshipping Jesus and the God of Abraham at the same time, without it being two gods.
If we are talking about the author of John, we can found a lot of common ground. IMHO, due to its misunderstandings of Judaism and its attempts to drive a wedge between Christians and Jews, I am inclined to believe that John (like the other gospels) was written either by a non-Jews, or by a Hellenized Jews out in the diaspora. Thus I agree with you that the authors of John are quite explicitly incorporating the Greek concept of Logos into the picture.
Unfortunately, they don't really do a good job at clearly explaining exactly how this works, which led to multiple schools of thought in the early church and great disputes, all coming to a head at Nicea.
Well, its nice to end on a note of agreement. I look forward to your reply.