My friend and colleague Larry Hurtado (University of Edinburgh) has written a brilliant and important book entitled How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Historical Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus (Eerdmans, 2005). It is a more popular version of perhaps his most well known book, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Eerdmans, 2005). 
For those who want a 10 minute distilled version of his thesis, take a look at the video here. It is the best summary I know of his big idea!
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Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
I do wish the description said how did Jesus become God instead of ‘a God.’
The title of Larry’s book says “a God.” It is meant, I think, to recognize that within the Roman world there were many “gods.” Larry is working here as a historian and not as a systematic theologian. This is not to say that these gods are real. In fact, as a Christian, he would say that Jesus is regarded as God and treated reverently as such.