By M. David Litwa
a few have referred to as it the essence of sin, others the intensity of salvation. despite one's evaluate of it, even though, deification all through Western background has been part of human aspiration. From the traditional pharaohs to fashionable transhumanists, humans have anticipated their very own divinity. those visionaries contain not just history's maximum megalomaniacs, but in addition mystics, sages, apostles, prophets, magicians, bishops, philosophers, atheists, and clergymen. a few aimed for self sufficient deity, others learned their everlasting union with God. a few expected godhood in heaven, others walked as gods on the earth. a few accredited divinity via grace, others accomplished it through their very own will to energy. there isn't any unmarried kind of deification (indeed, deification is as manifold because the human belief of God), however the many sorts are united by way of a suite of interlocking issues: attaining immortality, wielding superhuman energy, being full of supernatural wisdom or love--and via those potential transcending general human (or no less than "earthly") nature.
"This enticing and informative learn explores a ignored yet interesting topic, demonstrating via different ancient and cultural variations, from antiquity to the current, a perennial human aspiration now not purely to self-transcendence yet to divinity itself. there's a lot the following to curiosity scholars of antiquity, of Christianity, and of the historical past of ideas."
--Harry Gamble, collage of Virginia
"The earliest non secular texts within the West ascribe to humankind either a prehistory and a future one of the gods. M. David Litwa offers a impressive survey of the kinds the latter of those ideals has had, either inside and outdoors the Christian culture. Becoming Divine reconstructs an obtainable and interesting mosaic of this too-long missed thought, using figures as disparate as Orphic cultists, Augustine, and Nietzsche."
--Terryl L. Givens, collage of Richmond
"Deification is an interesting yet surprisingly overlooked subject within the historical past of religions. extraordinary notwithstanding it will probably look before everything sight, the concept humans can turn into divine is a routine one from antiquity to the current, not just in 'pagan' Hellenistic contexts yet in Christian and Islamic ones in addition. M. David Litwa's very well-researched and eminently readable assessment fills a huge gap."
--W. J. Hanegraaff, college of Amsterdam
M. David Litwa (PhD) is at the moment an teacher in Greek on the collage of Virginia. he's writer of We Are Being reworked: Deification in Paul's Soteriology (de Gruyter, 2012) and Iesus Deus: The Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God (Fortress, forthcoming).