— Edited

A second Greek idea, that of the believer’s participation in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), is not elsewhere found in the New Testament, but it had a long history in pagan Greek thought, which divided all existence between the material, mortal world and the divine world of permanence and purity. Jewish Hellenistic writers prior to 2 Peter suggest that the destiny of the human soul after death was to attain the purity and permanence associated with the divine sphere (e.g., 4 Macc. 18:3; Wisd. Sol. 2:23). Even the phrase “to share in the divine nature” can be found in both pagan and Jewish writings, but only in 2 Peter in the New Testament. While at first glance it could be taken by modern readers to mean a deification of the human that blurs the creator-creature distinction, it more likely would have been taken by the original readers to mean that through God’s promises in Jesus Christ human beings may come to the purity and immortality associated with God.  Karen H. Jobes, Letters to the Church: A Survey of Hebrews and the General Epistles (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 358. Are you not familiar with: We Are Being Transformed: Deification in Paul’s Soteriology (Beihefte zum Zeitschrift für Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 187; Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2012). https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110283419/html He seems to me to make the case quite well.
We Are Being Transformed
Can Pauline soteriology be categorized as a form of deification? This book attempts to answer this question by keen attention to the Greco-Roman world. It provides the first full-scale history of research on the topic. It is also the first work to fully treat the basic historical questions relating to deification. Namely, what is deity in the Greco-Roman world? What are the types of deification in the Greco-Roman world? Are there Jewish antecedents to deification? Does Paul consider Christ to be a divine being? If so, according to what logic? How is Pauline deification possible in light of ancient Jewish "monotheism"? How is deification possible with a strong notion of creation? Although a rigorously historical study, no attempt is made to avoid theological issues in their historical context. Deification, it is argued, provides a new historical category of perception with which to deepen our knowledge of the Apostle's religious thought in its own time. This book is intended for an academic audience. The range of topics discussed here should interest a wide-array of scholars in the fields of Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Classics, and Patristics.
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