Early Christians engaged in vigorous theological debates, but this does not imply a lack of coherence in their beliefs.
Exactly. The various attempts to describe Jesus in unbiblical terms caused the early church leaders to write an unprecidented amount of literature on the subject. As a result, we have today a consistent record of orthodoxy that connects scripture with the apostles to the leaders they trained and so on, all the way to the Nicene creed. That unaminous creed was made by hundereds of congregation leaders from a wide geopraphical area (the Roman empire).
As usual, we all have the same evidence but peoples' presuppositions inevitabley are imposed on that evidence. For the skeptic atheist, defense by the early congregation leaders against heresies is evidence of "raging" battles of orthodoxy and reason to be skeptical.
For the historian, the written record provides an unprecedented view into an unbroken chain of belief regarding the nature of Jesus as "God manifest in the flesh".
How could Jesus be viewed otherwise given the facts? Think about it: A man known as a miracle worker even by his enemies, who claimed to be God predicted that he would die a sacrificial death and raise himself from the dead three days later. Then, he did it.
If you were there and witnessed these events, how could you view Jesus as anything other than God? The fact that many people believed a man who walked out of a tomb is not surprising at all.
Later, a few individuals who did not witness these events questioned this and were roundly denounced by congregation leaders as not in line with what happened.
Good theology (as opposed to bad (theology) must accomodate ALL scriptures on the subject, not just some. For instance, Unitarians will point to biblical statements like: "The father is greater than I am" and announce that Jesus is not God. Believers will point out that not only is that statement true, but other statements made by Jesus are ALSO true, such as: Jesus posessing ALL power in heaven and earth.
For a skeptic rooted in materialism, he can never reconcile these statements and he predictably concludes the bible is incoherent.
But, if you use biblical definitions to explain biblical statements, coherence is self-evident. It all depends on whether or not you WANT the bible to make sense or not.
