Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity

Front Cover
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, Sep 14, 2005 - Religion - 768 pages
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.

 

Contents

Forces and Factors
25
Jewish Monotheism
27
Was Jewish Religion Really Monotheistic?
30
The Nature of Jewish Monotheism
40
Monotheism in the New Testament
46
The Effects of Monotheism on ChristDevotion
48
Jesus
51
Religious Experience
62
Jesus asand the Name of God
379
The Name of Jesus
387
Subordination and Distinction
390
Jesus and the Spirit
394
The Spirit and Johannine Christianity
398
Christology and Controversy
400
The Christological Crisis in Johannine Christianity
406
The Christological Issue
414

Revelatory Experiences in the New Testament
68
The Religious Environment
72
Summary
75
Early Pauline Christianity
77
Key Personal Factors
84
Pauls Jewishness
85
Paul the Convert
91
The Gentile Mission
94
Christological Language and Themes
96
Jesus Divine Sonship
99
Jesus as Lord
106
Preexistence
116
Jesus Redemptive Death and Resurrection
124
Jesus as Example
131
Binitarian Worship
132
Early Origins
133
Worship
135
Binitarian
149
Summary
151
Judean Jewish Christianity
153
Pauls Acquaintance with Judean Christianity
155
A Conspicuous Silence
163
Judean Christian Traditions in Pauls Letters
165
Judean ChristDevotion in Acts
175
Christological Categories
176
Devotional Practice
192
Hellenists and Hebrews
204
Hellenists as ProtoPaulinists
205
Hellenists as Jewish Christians
209
Summary
212
Q and Early Devotion to Jesus
215
Untenable Options
217
Kloppenborgs View of Qs Christology
220
Historical Plausibility
224
An Inductive Approach
231
Is Q Peculiar?
233
The Argument from Silence
237
Devotion to Jesus in Q
242
Centrality of Jesus
243
Qs Narrative World and Jesus
244
Jesus the Polarizing Issue
246
Christological Terms
248
Religious Life in Q
252
Summary
254
Jesus Books
257
Shared Features of the Canonical Gospels
260
The Literary Genre of the Canonical Gospels
268
The Gospels and Early Christian Literature
269
The Gospels and Jewish Literature
272
The RomanEra Literary Environment
275
The Synoptic Renditions of Jesus
281
Matthew
314
Luke
338
Summary
344
Crises and Christology in Johannine Christianity
347
Jesus in the Gospel of John
351
Some Literary Observations
352
Messiah and Son of God
356
Preexistence
362
I Am
368
The Son and the Father
371
Jesus asand the Glory of God
372
Jesus as Heavenly Visitor
417
Jesus as Mystical Exemplar
419
Historical Results
421
Crises and JesusDevotion
423
Other Early Jesus Books
425
Rumors
426
Secret Mark
431
Fragments
435
The Egerton Manuscript
438
Gospel of Peter
439
Infancy Gospels
445
Infancy Gospel of Thomas
447
Gospel of Thomas
450
A Jesus Book
452
Literary Character
453
Secret Knowledge
456
Revisionist
457
Elitist
459
Jesus and Thomistic Christianity
461
Summary and Placement
469
Gospel of Thomas and Gospel of John
472
Revelation Dialogues
477
Summary
481
The Second Century Importance and Tributaries
485
Approach and Focus
490
Definitions
492
FirstCentury Tributaries
494
The Epistle to the Hebrews
495
Later Pauline Texts
502
Confluent Evidence
516
Radical Diversity
517
Valentinus and Valentinianism
521
Valentinianism in Irenaeus
523
Valentinian Innovations
526
Valentinian Piety
529
Nag Hammadi Texts
531
Gospel of Truth
537
Marcion
547
Summarizing Reflections
556
Protoorthodox Devotion
561
The Fourfold Gospel
576
Visions and Revelations
586
Revelation
588
Ascension of Isaiah
593
Shepherd of Hermas
600
Worship and Prayer
603
Outsiders and Critics
604
Hymnody
607
Prayer
611
Martyrdom
617
The Nomina Sacra
623
Doctrinal Developments
625
Jesus Descent to Hades
626
Jesus Man and God
633
The Divine Jesus and God
638
Thereafter
646
Bibliography of Works Cited
650
Index of Modern Authors
695
Index of Subjects
707
Index of Ancient Sources
710
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About the author (2005)

Larry W. Hurtado is professor emeritus of New Testament language, literature, and theology at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

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