Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity

Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. By Larry W. Hurtado. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2003. xxii and 746 pages. Cloth. $55.00.

Larry Hurtado, well-known and frequently published New Testament scholar, is Professor of New Testament Language, Literature and Theology at the University of Edinburgh. In this work he explores the confessional statement Lord Jesus Christ as found in devotion of Jesus for the first two centuries of Christianity. He defines "Jesus devotion" not as Christology or as spiritual experience but as "the significance and role of Jesus Christ in both religious life and thought," that is, "how Jesus functions as divine in the religious life of Christian groups" (p. 2).

Hurtado has three basic points: (1) a noteworthy devotion to Jesus emerges early in the circle of his followers, a devotion not to be explained by the incursion of extraneous influences; (2) devotion to Jesus developed quickly with unparalleled intensity and diversity of expression; (3) devotion to Jesus, with reference to him as divine, occurred within a strict monotheism that insisted on the validity of the God of the Hebrew Scriptures (pp. 2-3). To explicate these intents Hurtado examines the background of Jesus devotion, especially Jewish monotheism (pp. 27-78), then the expression of that devotion in early Pauline Christianity (pp. 79-153), in Judean Jewish Christianity (pp. 155-216), in the sayings source Q (p. 217-57), in the Synoptic Gospels (pp. 259-347), in the Johannine Literature (pp. 349-426), and then in subsequent or divergent materials (pp. 427-605).

Hurtado wishes to interpret reverence for Jesus as a faith compatible with the monotheism of the Hebrew Scriptures--a reverence or devotion that arose immediately after the crucifixion and is not the result of Hellenistic influences. Working through this thesis entailed considerable analysis of the sources and debate with those who believe, or have believed, otherwise.

The author has an interesting style. The reader feels like a student in one of his classes. Hurtado speaks often in the first-person singular and addresses the reader(s) as listeners (first-person plural) who participate in his discussion with other scholars. His discussion with academics is often quite extended and his bibliographic notes close to reference level. In that sense this work is more than a study of Jesus devotion. It can serve an introduction to the Jesus/Christ-oriented literature of Christianity for the first two centuries (that is, Jesus books).

Hurtado has several difficulties in proving his thesis. He is fully aware of the weak points, so he spends extra time with them. Some examples: Does the appearance of Jesus as a divine being break with the heritage of Jewish monotheism and thereby signal a shift toward Hellenistic cults (as seen in W. Bousset's Kyrios Christos)? Hurtado tries to show that there were multiple manifestations of God already in the Hebrew Scriptures and Judaism (pp. 32-48). Another problem is that of the earliest Christian Jesus tradition. Does it show the Jesus devotion of which the author writes? The problem is Q (Quelle), the sayings tradition later used by Luke and Mark. Most Q scholars would assume it does not refer to a divine Jesus. Hurtado enters into a lengthy, thorough discussion of the Q text and a debate with Q expert Kloppenberg Verbin (esp. pp. 222-25 of chap. 4). He asserts that some Q texts show more Jesus orientation than scholars have granted. Yet at the end he maintains that any listener to or reader of Q would have known the tradition, so the words of Q would have brought to mind the kerygmatic "narrative substructure" (from Richard Hays, p. 247).

The Fourth Gospel also presents a serious problem because most scholars would assume it shows a strong interaction with the Hellenistic way of thinking, as well as fairly strong anti-Semitism. Hurtado argues that John, in writing this end-of-the-century Gospel, was in sharp conflict with Judaizers. The conflict caused him to make the Jesus devotion even more pronounced than it was with prior traditions. The resulting high Christology only appears to be an outside incursion (pp. 402-7). The Gospel of Thomas presents a special problem. It does not use the usual Jesus devotion language but rather coded, mystery language. While it does express the divine nature of Jesus, one cannot say this Gospel represents a true picture of early Christian Jesus faith (p. 472). I agree with Hurtado that the Gospel of Thomas does not reflect a community of believers, so its affirmations about Jesus are individualistic. On the other hand, Hurtado discounts the Gospel of Thomas too quickly. His later dating will not do. Paul knew the Gospel of Thomas tradition in some form. At least the material in 1 Cor 8:6, 13:2; Gal 3:27-28, 5:16-18; Rom 2:29 derive from some Thomaslike source that is neither Q nor the Gospel of Mark. While my response is not fatal to Hurtado's argument, still it shows his case to be indeed fragile in several places.