How Jesus Became God, the Spiritual Richness of the Dark, and More

This week on Interfaith Voices:

The Debate over the Divinity of Jesus

Most Christians learn in church that Jesus is “God made man.” But that belief wasn’t common among Jesus’ followers in his time. According to Bart Ehrman, Jesus wouldn’t have called himself divine, and he came to be seen as God many years after his death. It’s a journey that started with his disciples, and continued on to the Council of Nicea, more than three hundred years later.

Learning to Love the Dark Night of the Soul

Fear of the dark: many of us remember that feeling from childhood. As we get older, we can become fearful of other kinds of darkness: the emotional blackout of depression, or the spiritual gloominess of doubt. A new book offers a different way of looking at darkness, not as something to be feared, but as something to be embraced.

Spirituality at the End of Life: The December Project

Every Friday morning for two years, Sara Davidson drove to the home of a wise, warm rabbi to talk about a very difficult topic: what it means to die. They talked for hours, often meandering into stories and songs and memories. And this rabbi wasn’t just any rabbi–he was Rabbi Zalman Schater-Shalomi, founder of a mystical branch of modern Judaism called the Jewish Renewal movement.

Featured speakers/guests:

Bart Ehrman, author of How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee

Barbara Brown Taylor, author of Learning to Walk in the Dark

Sara Davidson, author of The December Project: An Extraordinary Rabbi and a Skeptical Seeker Confront Life’s Greatest Mystery

Rabbi Zalman Schater-Shalomi, founder of the Jewish Renewal movement

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