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Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity
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Average Rating:  out of 12 Reviews
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Price: $36.00
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Sale: $23.24
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Manufacturer: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
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EAN (European Article Number): 9780802831675
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Paperback
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Author: Larry W. Hurtado
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Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
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Edition: Pbk. Ed
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Dewey Decimal Number: 232.809015
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Publication Date: 2005-09-15
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Reading Level: 746
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Description: This outstanding book provides an in-depth historical study of the place of Jesus in the religious life, beliefs, and worship of Christians from the beginnings of the Christian movement down to the late second century. "Lord Jesus Christ" is a monumental work on earliest Christian devotion to Jesus, sure to replace Wilhelm Bousset's "Kyrios Christos" (1913) as the standard work on the subject. Larry Hurtado, widely respected for his previous contributions to the study of the New Testament and Christian origins, offers the best view to date of how the first Christians saw and reverenced Jesus as divine. In assembling this compelling picture, Hurtado draws on a wide body of ancient sources, from Scripture and the writings of such figures as Ignatius of Antioch and Justin to apocryphal texts such as the "Gospel of Thomas" and the "Gospel of Truth." Hurtado considers such themes as early beliefs about Jesus' divine status and significance, but he also explores telling devotional practices of the time, including prayer and worship, the use of Jesus' name in exorcism, baptism and healing, ritual invocation of Jesus as "Lord," martyrdom, and lesser-known phenomena such as prayer postures and the curious scribal practice known today as the "nomina sacra." The revealing portrait that emerges from Hurtado's comprehensive study yields definitive answers to questions like these: How important was this formative period to later Christian tradition? When did the divinization of Jesus first occur? Was early Christianity influenced by neighboring religions? How did the idea of Jesus' divinity change old views of God? And why did the powerful dynamics of early beliefs and practices encourage people to make the costly move of becoming a Christian? Boasting an unprecedented breadth and depth of coverage — the book speaks authoritatively on everything from early Christian history to themes in biblical studies to New Testament Christology — Hurtado's "Lord Jesus Christ" is at once significant enough that a wide range of scholars will want to read it and accessible enough that general readers interested at all in Christian origins will also profit greatly from it.
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Customer Reviews
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Review Summary: Magisterial study of the origins of Christ-worship |
Date: 2009-01-04 |
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Details: This is the most impressive book I've read in a long time.
In "Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity" Larry Hurtado studies the figure of Jesus Christ in the life of the earliest Church. The conventional wisdom in scholarly circles over the past century has been that the belief that Jesus was divine developed relatively late (after 70 A.D.) and was due mostly to Hellenistic influences. On the surface, these seem like common-sense assumptions; after all, how could strictly monotheistic Jews treat a fellow Jew they ate and drank with as a divine figure? Yet Hurtado painstakingly shows that these modern assumptions are not correct. All the evidence points to the fact that Christians very quickly (as early as the evidence can show) reverenced Jesus as divine, yet distinct from God the Father, while still remaining monotheistic. As Hurtado writes in the final pages of the book,
"Devotion to Jesus as divine erupted suddenly and quickly, not gradually and late, among first-century circles of followers. More specifically, the origins lie in Jewish Christian circles of the earliest years. Only a certain wishful thinking continues to attribute the reverence of Jesus as divine decisively to the influence of pagan religion and the influx of Gentile converts, characterizing it as developing late and incrementally. Furthermore, devotion to Jesus as the `Lord,' to whom cultic reverence and total obedience were the appropriate response, was widespread, not confined or attributable to particular circles, such as `Hellenists' or Gentile Christians of a supposed Syrian `Christ cult.'" ("Lord Jesus Christ", p. 650).
Two things in particular make this work stand out. First, Hurtado meticulously interacts with the best scholarship on this subject. Whenever he addresses a particular point in which he will argue, he finds the best proponent of that view and proceeds to detail the weaknesses and fallacies of that scholar's argument. Hurtado does not hide from any argument, and he is careful to back up all his own argumentation thoroughly. Second, Hurtado is comprehensive in his examination of the evidence. Instead of limiting himself to just doctrinal statements and debates (which is all too common in many scholarly circles), he carefully examines the actual practice of the first Christians. In fact, he shows that often the leaders of the earliest Church had to shape their doctrines to fit the existing devotional practice of the Church, not the other way around. This shows a deep understanding of how doctrine develops, and exhibits an appreciation for the importance of liturgical and devotional practices in Christian belief.
Hurtado, in general, sticks with most of the scholarly consensus when it comes to source criticism. For example, he accepts the two-source (Mark-Q) hypothesis and only accepts seven of Paul's letters as definitively genuine. However, even if one questions these theories it does not reduce Hurtado's overall arguments. In fact, it strengthens them: most scholars have used the findings of source criticism in the past two centuries as evidence of a late and gradual attribution of divinity to Christ, but Hurtado shows that even under these theories the evidence points to a "volcanic" eruption of worship of the man Jesus Christ as divine in the earliest circles of Christianity.
Finally, Hurtado is scrupulous about his scholarship: he never goes beyond the evidence and he never injects his own beliefs into his arguments. One does not have to have Christian faith to accept his conclusions, and Hurtado never attempts to explain why this eruption of belief in Jesus as divine occurred - his purpose is only to show that it did occur, very early and in a very widespread fashion.
This book will become the new standard of scholarship on this important topic. All who are interested in this subject will do well to take seriously the arguments made by Hurtado in "Lord Jesus Christ."
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Review Summary: Major achievement |
Date: 2009-01-03 |
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Details: This monumental tome investigates devotion to Jesus as a divine figure from the earliest years of Christianity to the late 2nd century. The book was in certain ways shaped by Bousset's 1913 study Kyrios Christos although Hurtado's conclusions are quite different: (a) worship of Jesus was not a secondary development (b) this devotion was expressed with unprecedented intensity & diversity (c) it was articulated within the exclusivist monotheism of the God of Israel.
First, Hurtado considers the nature of Jewish monotheism, monotheism in the New Testament & its effects on devotion to Christ, the religious environment and revelatory experiences in the NT. He argues that visionary experiences contributed to elevating Jesus to an exalted position whilst commitment to monotheism shaped this devotion into a Binitarian mode which represented an unprecedented innovation.
There are no reliable sources from pre-Pauline Christianity; the earliest writings are Paul's epistles. Hurtado accepts Paul's Jewishness but ignores his claim to Pharisee status, a claim devastatingly refuted by Hyam Maccoby. Nor does he touch on the subject of why Paul quoted from the Greek translation of the Tenakh, not the original Hebrew. As regards the apostle's dramatic turnabout, Eric Hoffer's interesting psychological look at the true believer must be borne in mind.
Hurtado finds no difference in devotional practice between Hebrew & Hellenistic Christianity, viewing Paul not as an innovator but a transmitter of tradition. All the evidence comes from Paul's writings and the Book of Acts. Next he investigates the Q-source, a collection of sayings of Jesus widely considered authentic, which was heavily drawn upon by `Matthew' & `Luke.' He argues that Q is a well-crafted text that confirms devotion to Christ, not a different form of the faith.
The author explores the Roman literary environment, Jewish literature and early Christian literature in context. He believes the canonical gospels were written between 65 & 100 AD and describes the shared features of the Synoptics: Mark, Matthew & Luke. About the `Son of Man' expression he agrees with Geza Vermes; it was not a title but served as substitute for the 1st person pronoun. A whole chapter is devoted to Johannine Christianity and the gospel of John with its strikingly different Christological content, narrative, vocabulary & major themes.
Its polemical tone & controversies shows that it must have reflected the views of a particular group; it was written in two or more stages over a number of years, finding its present form in about 100 AD. Hurtado contends that The Gospel of John reflects some serious crises in the late first century, based in two major disputes: within Johannine Christianity, and with Jewish opponents. He avoids mentioning the book's diabolical antisemitism, although to be fair, the subject is not within the stated aims of his book.
He performs a diachronic analysis of extra-canonical books, confirming the diversity in early Christianity with its many heterodox views of Jesus. Only the titles of some survive, whilst selective quotes from others were preserved in the cryptic & inconsistent remarks of `church fathers' like Irenaeus, Clement of A, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius & Jerome. These are the Gospels of the Nazoreans (Nazarenes), the Hebrews and the Ebionites. The three versions of Mark are discussed as well as fragments from Akhmim & Fayyum, the Egerton Manuscript, Gospel of Peter, Protevangelium of James & the Nag Hammadi Library.
He engages in great detail with the Gospel of Thomas, a book of 114 sayings, analyzing its structure & literary character. In this lengthy discussion, he observes that though eclectic, this book has a purpose & emphases. It is esoteric & revisionist, placing the teaching above the person of Jesus, stressing the revelatory not the redemptive. There are however echoes of the Synoptics, Johannine Christianity & the Epistles.
By the closing decades of the 1st century, both the leadership & adherents of the faith had shifted from the Jewish to the gentile. This is when Christianity became a religion as opposed to a Jewish sect. Hurtado makes some interesting observations about the Epistle to the Hebrews and its references to the high priest Melchizedek. At this time, the Roman authorities & cultural elites became aware of the movement, as reflected in Pliny, Trajan, Tacitus, Suetonius, Epictetus and Celsus; it was also the century in which the NT writings were collected, copied, disseminated & edited.
The author highlights the radical diversity of the 2nd century by focusing on the minimalist gospel of Marcion & the esoteric one of Valentinus; he quite correctly does not consider the Gnostics as a single homogeneous movement. Regarding the Jewish Christians of the time, there are once again basic source problems. According to Justin, there were two streams, both full observers of Torah & believers in Jesus as Messiah & Son of God. One demanded the full Torah observation of gentiles, the other not. Ray Pritz considers the Nazarenes as similar to the Proto-Orthodox and the Ebionites as having seen Jesus as Messiah but not as divine. Another possibility is that the Nazarenes or Nazoreans, reduced & scattered after the destruction of Jerusalem, might later have been called Ebionites (Evyonim = poor ones).
The last chapter identifies the expressions of devotion associated with the Proto-Orthodox during the 2nd half of the second century. This included finding Christ everywhere in the Old Testament and unfortunately the seeds of replacement theology in the belief that the church had displaced Israel. Hurtado points out the Binitarian devotion in the books of Revelation, The Shepherd of Hermas & Ascension of Isaiah and looks at forms of worship, prayer and hymnody, the Didache and the Nomina Sacra. He concludes that in a real sense, Jesus is bigger than Christianity.
Footnotes adorn, explain and illuminate almost every page as Hurtado references a breathtaking variety of ancient & modern authors. The bibliography comprises 48 pages and there are three indexes: Modern Authors, Subjects & Ancient Sources. Even those who disagree with Hurtado on major issues must concede that Lord Jesus Christ is a work of magnificent research and scholarship.
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Review Summary: Christ-deoviton in Earliest Christianity |
Date: 2008-05-09 |
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Details: Hurtado has done a masterful job in this work which ties together years of research and writing on the main theme of this book: Christ-devotion in the early church. For five decades, the loadstone on this theme has been Bousset's "Kyrios Christos". No scholar can work in this area without interacting with Bousset; Hurtado, with due appreciation of the strenghts and brillance of Bousset's work, does not hesitate to show the major drawbacks of the "religionsgeschichtliche Schule's" methodology and conclusions.
Other reviews of this book adequately address the new ground that Hurtado covers. Of special import is his explanation of his methodology. Researchers and scholars would do well to note Hurtado's discussion of his historiography. Modern historical understanding is unavoidably dependent upon analogy. Accurate observation and comparison are crucial. Hurtado makes the argument that inaccurate observations and misguided comparisons produce theories that attribute too much significance to teritiary concerns while overlooking vital ones. "Any theory that can be shown to rest upon an oversimplified or distorted view of what is being explained, or ovelooks and important factor, or simply gets wrong the interaticon of relevant historical factors is justifiably to be rejected or seriously modified (p. 28)." The rest of Hurtado's effort is a masterful job of applying his priciples of historiography.
Hurtado's irenic tone with those with whom he takes issue will make this work a pleasure to read, even for most of those who may disagree with some of his assumptions or conclusions. Some reviewers should not confuse invective with argument, or heat with persuasiveness. Diatribe is best left for talk shows and cable tv. |
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Review Summary: Biased opinions obvious |
Date: 2007-11-01 |
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Details: The only reason a 5 star rating by 8 individuals can be justified, is not on readability or clarity. It is transparently obvious that, the only criteria was support for their theology. And all reviews say as much. An alternative theory to christology is hailed as the answer to Christs identity with the same enthusiasm as vitamins cure cancer. Anything but orhtodox medicine is hailed as a wonder therapy. Anything but that Jesus is God is here hailed in five stars! The bias is not even veiled. This verbose and out on a limb, interpretation as fact epic work gets a 1 in my rating. Time could better be spent on more honest less ego centric theory. |
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Review Summary: How the Church Has Always Revered Jesus Christ as Divine |
Date: 2007-03-29 |
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Details: We have needed this book for a long time! Larry Hurtado has given us a full scale treatment of the history of devotion to Jesus Christ. Contrary to scholars such as J.D Crossan, Hurtado shows why Paul's writings must be considered when researching the history of devotion to Christ. He persuasively demonstrates that in Paul's writings as well as the later Gospel traditions, Jesus was revered. He even shows where Paul puts Jesus right up there with God (he calls this a binitarian understanding of God). He says that this is a radical new envisioning of Jewish monotheism and that it cannot be traced back to any polytheistic Gentile ideas.
Hurtado also shows how the Gospels and Q also reveal the church's early devotion to Jesus.
The book concludes with a discussion of Jesus in later noncanonical writings such as the Gospel of Thomas and in the writings of the early church fathers.
The basic thesis of the book is that the church worshipped Jesus as divine from the very beginning of Christianity. Hurtado dialogues with Jesus scholars such as Martin Hengel, John Kloppenborg, J.D Crossan, and James D.G Dunn, and he always treats their work with the utmost respect while also explaining why he occasionally must diverge from their viewpoints.
The last time a major study of Jesus worship was written was way back in 1913, so this book is long overdue. Hurtado is a moderately conservative guide through the twists and turns of early Christian literature, and his conclusions are well thought out and deserve to be considered. |
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