>>But if you want some careful analysis, check out books by Bart Ehrman.<<

I've read a very provocative and wonderfully insightful book called "The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture" (Oxford University Press, 1993) by Bart D. Ehrman (Assoc. prof. of Religious Studies at U of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and he has a highly interesting take on what early Christianity was like before the NT and the orthodoxy was established.

We know in the early days of this religion, there were hundreds of competing views about who and what Jesus Christ was. Some groups didn't even regard Jesus and Christ as the same being. Some said a divine Christ came to inhabit a human Jesus. Others said Jesus Christ was a man chosen by god. Others said he was the son of god and not really begotten on earth 2000 years ago but that he "pre-existed" his earthly incarnation. All sorts of views that competed for supremacy--for orthodoxy. What we call orthodox today was just another competing view at one time with no more claim to orthodoxy than any other group.

Ehrman believes that not only is the modern orthodoxy not orthodox in the 2nd and 3rd centuries but that the NT itself does not express an orthodox view except where it has been provably corrupted by scribes of the orthodox persuasion, which occurred from the 2nd to the 4th centuries.

The original writings that comprise the canon were Adoptionist. Adoptionists held that Jesus was an ordinary man who was, at some point, declared by god to be His son. There was no miraculous birth with angels, guiding stars or pregnant virgins.   Ehrman points out that even the Adoptionist creed appears to have changed over time. The oldest form of Adoptionism held that Jesus was not appointed or declared the son of god until his resurrection. A later form took over that held that Jesus was adopted by God at his baptism.

For instance, in Mark 1:1, we read, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God." Ehrman mentions eight important early texts that omit the phrase "son of god." Scholars try to account for the omission by saying it was a mistake on the part of the scribes but Ehrman finds it odd that such a mistake would appear immediately in a text rather than somewhere in the middle and that every scribe who copied a Markan gospel text independently of the others managed to make the same mistake over and over again.
Then we read of the baptism of Jesus by John:

"And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, 'Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.'" (Mk 1:10-11)

Here was originally an Adoptionist moment. For them, Jesus became son of god at that moment. He was not the son of god before then. First of all, the wording of the passage indicates that ONLY Jesus saw the heavens part and dove descend and the voice of god speak to him. No one else present saw or heard anything. This would be odd for Jesus to require this personal epiphany were he already the actual son of god especially since his miraculous birth would have made everyone around him aware of his special status. Nevertheless, orthodox Christians of today can say there is no declaration of god that Jesus was only appointed his son at that moment. IOW, Jesus still could have been preexistent in this baptism account and it is therefore not Adoptionist.

Luke 3:22 also recounts the incident but the earliest Lukan manuscripts do not have god saying, "Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased." Rather, god says, "Thou art my beloved Son; today I have begotten thee." This is an important distinction.

By saying "today I have begotten thee" we see that god adopted Jesus as his son at that moment and that Jesus was not an actual semi-divine son of god from birth and was not pre-existent. He was an ordinary man who was adopted by god at his baptism. So even Mark's account of the baptism was corrupted by the orthodoxy so the preexistence of Jesus could not be questioned here.

The baptism incident, too central to Christianity to be deleted, had to be changed to choke off the Adoptionist claims which were apparently quite widespread at that time (remember that two Roman Church bishops--Irenaeus and Papias--did not believe Jesus died on the cross but lived in Asia to age 50). Strangely, though, the early Lukan MSS did not remove the Adoptionist language from 3:22 even though it blatantly contradicted Luke's claim in 1:35 where he wrote:

"And the angel said to her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.'"

So we see why the early Lukan MSS were changed, they contradicted the orthodox claim put forth in 1:35--namely that Jesus was son of god from birth. Ehrman believes 3:22 to be an original verse of text since it would be highly questionable that scribes educated in the later orthodox school would have added Adoptionist Christology.
The Lukan MSS, which include Acts, must have been hugely revised because Acts is strewn with Adoptionist statements--some of them extremely blatant. In Acts 10:37-38, Jesus is declared to be adopted by god at his baptism:

"the word which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism which John preached: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power..."

We find traces of the older Adoptionist creed that Jesus was adopted at his resurrection in Acts 2:36 spoken by Peter:

"Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified."

In 5:30-31, we find a more blatant example:

"The God of our fathers raised Jesus whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins."

Ehrman feels blatant creeds as this were not deleted because they represented an older Adoptionist Christology no longer practiced and so did not present a problem to the anti-Adoptionist group pushing to become the orthodoxy.

The Adoptionist creed is an older Christology than Paul's since he addresses the Adoptionists in his opening lines in Romans:

"...the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead..."(Rom 1:3-4)

Once again, we run across Jesus being designated as Son of God at his resurrection. Paul was forced to address the issue of Adoptionism and Jesus being descended from David because these were the main groups he would preach to in Rome (assuming he ever really went there--he wasn't in Rome when he wrote Romans and there is no record he ever went there much less died there).

The Transfiguration, if Spong is correct, was a post-resurrection event recast as a pre-resurrection one. The very nature of the episode indicates that Jesus was already dead when it occurred and that Peter would have no reason to want to build a tabernacle to Jesus right then and there were Jesus still alive--Luke even includes a bit about Peter saying this in his confusion.

If Spong is right--and I think he is--then this may have been another original Adoptionist moment that came at the resurrection since while he was on the mount with Peter, John and James, a "bright cloud" comes over them and a voice declares Jesus to be his son and that the others listen to him. A strange order since they were already following him. This then may have originally been the moment Jesus first appeared after his death. Again, the Transfiguration episode may have been so central to orthodox Christology that the incident was not deleted but changed from post- to pre-resurrection status.

Why not just write entirely new gospels instead of revising old Adoptionist literature? Same reason. These writings were THE Christian writings of that period and for the orthodoxy to be regarded as legitimate they would have to gradually revise the original documents rather than throwing out the baby with the bath water by creating entirely new ones.

This indicates that the miraculous birth movement came up through the Adoptionist church and, by degrees, took it over.