THE CAULDRON REPORT

JESUS DIVINITY DEBATE AND CONNECTED TRADITIONS

Early Jewish-Christian groups—including the Ebionites, Theodotus of Byzantium, and Paul of Samosata—held an adoptionist view of Jesus. Rooted in strict Jewish monotheism, specific readings of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the Synoptic Gospels, they maintained that Jesus was a fully human man empowered or adopted by God rather than a pre-existent divine being.

Strict Monotheism and the Jewish Messiah

• Monotheistic Foundation: Jewish Christians anchored their theology in the Shema (“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” — Deuteronomy 6:4) and Isaiah 45:5 (“I am the Lord, and there is no other”).

• Rejection of Ditheism: Both the Ebionites and Dynamic Monarchians argued that calling Jesus “God” in his own right violated strict monotheism and created two gods (ditheism).

Infidel Independence Week

Dates: November 30 – December 6

Infidel Independence Week is an annual observance dedicated to celebrating everyone's right to intellectual autonomy, independent self-determination driven by clear critical thinking, freedom of conscience, and the right to live free from imposed religions, theocracies and ideologies. It honors the courage of freethinkers, skeptics, apostates, and secularists who choose reason, personal sovereignty, and self-determination over forced, inherited, or imposed belief systems and those of various spiritual traditions and practices that share the same sense all must be free to choose their own paths for better or worse.

Core Themes

• Freedom of Conscience: Affirming the fundamental human right to question, dissent from, or leave any religious or ideological framework without fear of stigma, ostracization, or persecution.