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<\/a><\/p>\nHere is an excellent discussion of a recent important book on Jesus\u2019 self-understanding, by my friend Larry Hurtado.<\/p>\n
by larryhurtado
\nA new book presents the argument that the key reason that Jesus became a recipient of worship in earliest Christian circles is that he claimed divinity and the right to receive worship: Andrew Ter Ern Loke, The Origin of Divine Christology, Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series,169 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).<\/p>\n
As it appears that I am Loke\u2019s main dialogue partner in his book, and my proposals the main focus of his criticism, I should offer a response. From my 1988 book, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (3rd edition, London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015) onward through my 2003 book, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Eerdmans, pp. 27-78), I\u2019ve proposed several \u201cforces and factors\u201d that prompted and shaped earliest devotion to Jesus. These include \u201cancient Jewish monotheism\u201d exhibited particularly in the \u201ccultic (worship) exclusivity\u201d in which the one deity of biblical tradition was worshiped to the exclusion of the many other deities of the ancient world; the impact of Jesus himself in his historical work (which, with other scholars, I contend generated the expectation among his followers that he was or would be declared Messiah, and the corresponding charge against him that led to his crucifixion); powerful religious experiences in the \u201cpost-Easter\u201d period that generated the strong conviction that God had raised Jesus from death and exalted him to heavenly glory, and now demanded that Jesus be reverenced accordingly; and the \u201creligious environment\u201d of the Roman era, which both provided earliest believers with some conceptual resources and terminology, and also helped to generate a foil against which to articulate and express Jesus\u2019 uniqueness.<\/p>\n
The historical data indicate that a robust incorporation of the risen\/exalted Jesus into the devotional life of Jesus-believers erupted early and took hold quickly, as evident in the constellation of corporate devotional practices that I have repeatedly specified and that comprise a novel \u201cdyadic\u201d devotional pattern in which \u201cGod\u201d and Jesus receive cultic reverence. The question is how to account for this, given that these earliest Jesus-believers were all Jews and that the \u201ccultic exclusivity\u201d characteristic of ancient Jewish tradition worked strongly against giving worship to any second being\/figure alongside the one God.<\/p>\n
As I see no evidence that the \u201chistorical\u201d Jesus himself demanded (or received) such cultic reverence, and there are early texts that emphasize God\u2019s resurrection and exaltation of Jesus and the consequent demand that Jesus should be reverenced (e.g., Philippians 2:9-11), this dyadic devotional pattern appears to me to be a response to what earliest believers perceived to be God\u2019s actions and requirement. The further question, then, is how this perception and conviction came to them. My own proposal is that early experiences of the risen\/exalted Jesus, prophetic utterances and inspired odes expressing Jesus\u2019 exalted status, and \u201ccharismatic exegesis\u201d of biblical (OT) texts all combined to generate the guiding conviction that God now required that Jesus should be reverenced as sharing in divine glory.<\/p>\n
It is this emphasis on \u201cpost-Easter\u201d revelatory experiences that Loke finds objectionable, and against which he argues. He contends, \u201cAny implementation of new worship patterns based on the kinds of religious experiences which Hurtado suggests (i.e. visions, charismatic exegeses, etc.) would likely have met widespread dissent for at least quite some time among the earliest Christians (especially among those more traditionalist Christian Jews). And yet, shockingly, there is no hint of such disagreements or even discussions among Christians concerning the worship of Jesus in the earliest Christian documents\u201d (129). In Loke\u2019s view, \u201cearliest Christians regarded Jesus\u2019 teachings as the supreme indication of God\u2019s will,\u201d and so \u201cif Jesus did not claim to be divine\u201d then his followers \u201cwould probably have reasoned that this was not God\u2019s will\u201d (130). That is, Loke\u2019s explanation for the early eruption of Jesus-devotion is that Jesus himself taught his disciples that he was divine and deserved such reverence, and in Jesus\u2019 resurrection they saw all this divinely vindicated.<\/p>\n
In principle, Loke\u2019s proposal is entirely possible. We don\u2019t know of other ancient Jews (or at least those who continued to identify themselves within ancient Jewish tradition) who taught that they should be worshipped, so it would appear to have been a rather novel thing for Jesus to have done so. But the idea that a particular human figure should be treated as a deity was by no means foreign in the larger environment of the Greco-Roman era. Still, I don\u2019t find Loke\u2019s case persuasive, and I\u2019ll sketch what seem to me to be some major problems with it.<\/p>\n
First (as Loke concedes), the evidence indicates that Jesus was not given the cultic reverence in question until the \u201cpost-Easter\u201d period. So, if Jesus taught his original disciples that he was divine and should consequently receive worship, why didn\u2019t they respond accordingly? Loke answers that, although Jesus expressed his divine status to his disciples, they didn\u2019t quite \u201cget it\u201d until after they experienced God\u2019s resurrection of Jesus. This, Loke argues, had the effect of somehow making them remember more fully what Jesus had already taught them about his person. But the fact remains that there was no such cultic reverence of Jesus until after the experiences of his resurrection\/exaltation. This still seems to me to make these experiences the crucial factor in generating the conviction that it was now right to give Jesus cultic devotion.<\/p>\n
Second, critical analysis of the historical traditions does not yield evidence that Jesus himself actually claimed to share in divine glory and status during his earthly career.[i] Instead, the classic instances where Jesus makes such claims for himself are scenes where the risen\/exalted Jesus speaks, e.g., Matthew 28:16-20; Luke 24:44-52. Loke, however, contends that, \u201cwhether the indication [Jesus\u2019 claims to divinity] happened \u2018pre-resurrection\u2019 or \u2018post-resurrection\u2019 does not matter; all that matters is that the indication was perceived to have come from Jesus\u201d (159). But it seems to me that, in historical terms, it matters a great deal whether the Jesus claimed divinity and demanded worship during his ministry, or (as I think the evidence shows) earliest believers experienced the risen\/exalted Jesus expressing God\u2019s exaltation of him to divine glory.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not talking about the theological\/religious validity of these claims or worship practices. I\u2019m focusing on the historical factors and process that generated them. It\u2019s a fallacy that I\u2019ve identified earlier here to presume that the validity of \u201cdivine christology\u201d rests on whether the \u201chistorical\u201d Jesus himself claimed divinity. A lot of traditional Christians presume this, as do a lot of others, including some so-called \u201cEvangelical Unitarians,\u201d and also non\/anti-Christian voices (including, e.g., some Muslim apologists). But, as I read the evidence, for earliest believers, the crucial theological basis for acclaiming Jesus in \u201chigh\u201d Christological terms and for including him as a recipient of corporate devotion was what they held that God claimed and demanded.<\/p>\n
There are other issues raised in Loke\u2019s book that also deserve attention, but I confine my attention here to this historical question. Loke offers a bold and vigorously argued case, but I don\u2019t find it persuasive. It still seems to me more fitting with the evidence to infer that earliest believers experienced the risen Jesus as given divine glory, exalted to God\u2019s \u201cright hand,\u201d and made to share in the divine name (Philippians 2:9-11), all of which took their previous estimate of Jesus to a categorically new level. To be sure, the experiences of the risen Jesus validated their previous estimate of Jesus as God\u2019s Messiah, and validated Jesus\u2019 teachings and actions as the unique and eschatological agent of God\u2019s purposes. But in their experiences that struck them with revelatory force, God\u2019s resurrection of Jesus comprised still more: the exaltation of Jesus to heavenly glory, his installation as \u201cLord\u201d and the one to whom all creation should now give obeisance, in obedience to God\u2019s actions and will.<\/p>\n
Loke contends that for earliest believers, Jesus was their supreme authority, and so if Jesus didn\u2019t declare his divinity his followers wouldn\u2019t have accepted the notion. But, as I read the evidence, for earliest believers the crucial matter was what God had declared about Jesus, what God had done in making Jesus the \u201cKyrios\u201d. Granted, the traditions in the Gospels have the risen\/exalted Jesus declaring God\u2019s bestowal on him of authority and glory (e.g., Matthew 28:18), but it was God\u2019s new actions of resurrection and exaltation of Jesus that made any such declaration and conviction valid. And I remain persuaded that powerful religious experiences of the kind that I have sketched (which include experiences of the person of the risen Jesus) conveyed that conviction.<\/p>\n
[i] Of course, by a \u201ccritical analysis\u201d of the evidence, I mean that (as agreed widely among NT scholars) the distinctive self-declarations of Jesus in the Gospel of John should be taken as retrospectively shaped by \u201cpost-Easter\u201d experiences and convictions. See, e.g., my essay, Larry W. Hurtado, \u201cRemembering and Revelation: The Historic and Glorified Jesus in the Gospel of John,\u201d in Israel\u2019s God and Rebecca\u2019s Children: Christology and Community in Early Judaism and Christianity. Essays in Honor of Larry W. Hurtado and Alan F. Segal, ed. David B. Capes et al. (Waco, TX: Baylor Univesity Press, 2007), 195-213. The pre-publication version is available on this blog site here.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here is an excellent discussion of a recent important book on Jesus\u2019 self-understanding, by my friend Larry Hurtado. by larryhurtado A new book presents the argument that the key reason that Jesus became a recipient of worship in earliest Christian circles is that he claimed divinity and the right to receive worship: Andrew Ter Ern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n