the dead." Exaltation and deification According to Ehrman, a central question in the research on Jesus and early Christianity is how a human came to be deified in a relatively short time. Jewish Christians like the Ebionites had an Adoptionist Christology and regarded Jesus as the Messiah while rejecting his divinity, while other strands of Christian thought regard Jesus to be a "fully divine figure", a "high Christology". How soon the earthly Jesus was regarded to be the incarnation of God is a matter of scholarly debate. Philippians 2:6–11 contains the Christ hymn, which portrays Jesus as an incarnated and subsequently exalted heavenly being: According to Dunn, the background of this hymn has been strongly debated. Some see it as influenced by a Greek worldview. while others have argued for Jewish influences. According to Dunn, the hymn contains a contrast with the sins of Adam and his disobedience. Dunn further notes that the hymn may be seen as a three-stage Christology, starting with "an earlier stage of mythic pre-history or pre-existence," but regards the humility-exaltation contrast to be the main theme. This belief in the incarnated and exalted Christ was part of Christian tradition a few years after his death and over a decade before the writing of the Pauline epistles. According to Dunn, the background of this hymn has been strongly debated. Some see it as influenced by a Greek worldview, According to Burton L. Mack the early Christian communities started with "Jesus movements", new religious movements centering on a human teacher called Jesus. A number of these "Jesus movements" can be discerned in early Christian writings. According to Mack, within these Jesus-movements developed within 25 years the belief that Jesus was the Messiah, and had risen from death. According to Erhman, the gospels show a development from a "low Christology" towards a "high Christology". Yet, a "high Christology" seems to have been part of Christian traditions a few years after his death, and over a decade before the writing of the Pauline epistles, which are the oldest Christian writings. According to Martin Hengel, as summarized by Jeremy Bouma, the letters of Paul already contain a fully developed Christology, shortly after the death of Jesus, including references to his pre-existence. According to Hengel, the Gospel of John shows a development which builds on this early high Christology, fusing it with Jewish wisdom traditions, in which Wisdom was personified and