in the first ekklēsia (which formed the basis for the Apostolic succession). In the Antiquities of the Jews, a 1st-century account of Jewish history by Josephus, believers of the resurrection are discussed. However, this reference to the resurrection is widely believed to have been added by a Christian interpolator. Within the non-canonical literature of Gospel of Peter, there is a retelling of the resurrection of Jesus. Ushering in the last days Jesus's followers expected God's Kingdom to come soon, and Jesus's resurrection was the first event of the Endtime. As Borg and Crossan note, "For Mark the kingdom of God is already here because the Son of Man is already present." Exaltation and Christology Christ-devotion The New Testament writings contend that the resurrection was "the beginning of His exalted life" as Christ and Lord. Jesus is the "firstborn of the dead," prōtotokos, the first to be raised from the dead, and thereby acquiring the "special status of the firstborn as the preeminent son and heir." According to Beale, Hurtado notes that soon after his death, Jesus was called Lord (Kyrios), which "associates him in astonishing ways with God." The term Lord reflected the belief that God had exalted Jesus to a divine status "at God's 'right hand'." The worship of God as expressed in the phrase "call upon the name of the Lord [Yahweh]" was also applied to Jesus, invocating his name "in corporate worship and in the wider devotional pattern of Christian believers (e.g., baptism, exorcism, healing)." According to Hurtado, powerful religious experiences were an indispensable factor in the emergence of Christ-devotion. Those experiences "seem to have included visions of (and/or ascents to) God's heaven, in which the glorified Christ was seen in an exalted position." Those experiences were interpreted in the framework of God's redemptive purposes, as reflected in the scriptures, in a "dynamic interaction between devout, prayerful searching for, and pondering over, scriptural texts and continuing powerful religious experiences." This initiated a "new devotional pattern unprecedented in Jewish monotheism," that is, the worship of Jesus next to God, giving Jesus a central place because his ministry, and its consequences, had a strong impact on his early followers. Revelations, including those visions, but also inspired and spontaneous utterances, and "charismatic exegesis" of the Jewish scriptures, convinced them that this devotion was commanded by God. Ehrman notes that both Jesus and his early followers were apocalyptic Jews, who believed