Jesus is well known to be a divine figure. People understand that the Christian belief is that Jesus was God making him the most divine. This idea, however, was progressed through time. Mark’s Gospel never fully ever alludes to this well known Christian belief. Even though the idea of Jesus being God was never fully… Continue reading →
The three characteristics of a “Devine Man” that White describes are: 1.) Birth A) special prophecy such as dreams and Devine oracles that announce the Messenger (Son) of God – mother (Mary) is announced as a mother (who was a virgin) and the pregnancy was given by god (a Devine parent) – God (who gave… Continue reading →
White outlines the characteristics of a “divine man” (and interestingly there is no divine woman mentioned) based largely on Ludwig Bieler’s identification of the Greco-Roman literary device concerning the theios aner. These characteristics are commonly found in the re-telling of the life stories of exceptional individuals from history and they are as follows: An unusual… Continue reading →
The Life of Apollonius of Tyana was written by Philostratus to respond to attacks made against Apollonius. Apollonius was a philosopher who had gained a bad rap from the people around him in the first century. He was accused of using magic malevolently, which was an insult in that time. The writers of the texts… Continue reading →
A couple passages in White really stood out to me and showed the persuasion of Apollonius being an undisputed divine man. To start off, Apollonius was supposedly going to be a divine man before he was even born. An apparition of an Egyptian Demon, Proteus came to Apollonius’s mother while she was child bearing. The… Continue reading →
A divine man is born special; right off the bat there is something different about this man than any other man. According to White, this man is born on a special day and has a special nature manifested inside of him. Once the divine man reaches adulthood there are six things that really define this… Continue reading →
In the Greco-Roman context, a divine man follows a systematic guideline, established by Ludwig Bieler in 1935. Stories have closely followed these idiosyncrasies of a divine man, such as those involving Jesus, Moses, and various other figures that have been emphasized for their significant value; although, the story of Apollonius parallels Bieler’s guidelines of a… Continue reading →
