Yesterday I began blogging through Larry Hurtado’s important book, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. His main point is that devotion to Jesus as divine was not a secondary development of Christianity. Instead, such devotion appears in history as “a virtual ‘big bang,’ erupting suddenly and quickly and widely, not gradually and late and in select locales. He suggests that what developed among the earliest Christians was a “variant” of Jewish monotheism—a redefinition following their experience with Jesus. Their monotheism became “binitarian”: the one God was known and worshipped as the Father and as the Son.
His book begins with the writings of the Apostle Paul because, though the Four Gospels describe events that preceded Paul, the letters of Paul were written first. Paul’s conversion was within a few years of the execution of Jesus. And, of course, Paul’s experience with Palestinian Jewish Christians was even earlier in his days as their persecutor. So:
Paul’s persecution of Jewish Christians, his conversion and subsequent participation in Christian circles, and the full pattern of faith and piety that he professes to have shared with Jewish Christians from the beginning (e.g., 1 Cor. 15:11) are all key data for any adequate account of the Christian movement in the first two decades.
The devotion to Jesus Paul expresses in his letters, and commends to others, was born out of a fervent Jewish monotheism. He regarded his converted understanding of Jesus as consonant with everything he knew of the Hebrew Scriptures. Thus, liberal scholars overstate their case when they attribute Paul’s view of a divine Jesus to pagan influences upon Paul. Paul’s reference to “sonship” is a case in point: Certainly there were pagan stories of gods siring sons (and daughters, too), but every reference to Jesus as God’s “son” in Paul’s letters is framed in Jewish categories rather than Greek.
What’s important to note about the view of Jesus we see in Paul’s letters: Paul seems to refer to ideas of Jesus already in place instead of introducing something new. “Paul seems to presuppose acquaintance with the Christological convictions that he affirms,” Hurtado writes, “and most often he expresses them in brief, somewhat formulaic terms.” What that means is that, even though Paul’s writings are quite early after Jesus’ execution, the views to which he refers are obviously earlier still, taking us to the very dawn of the Christian movement. So, references to Jesus as Messiah, Son, Lord (even quoting Old Testament verses about the Lord God as references to Jesus), his pre-existence, and the saving power of his death and resurrection—Paul did not introduce these references to the church but commented on concepts that were already well in place when he wrote. Hurtado:
In Pauline Christianity we see a remarkable ‘overlap’ in function between God and Jesus, and also in the honorific rhetoric use to refer to them both. This is all the more phenomenal when we note that Paul’s letters show that this was already rather well developed by the 50s, and could be taken for granted by Paul. Indeed, there is hardly any indication in Paul’s letters that he knew of any controversy or serious variance about this exalted place of Jesus among the various other Christian circles with which he was acquainted. In historical terms we may refer to a veritable ‘big bang,’ an explosively rapid and impressively substantial christological development in the earliest stages of the Christian movement….Though Christians struggled over the next few centuries to articulate in varying ways more completely a view of the relationship of God and Christ, the Pauline letters indicate that at an astonishingly early point basic convictions about Jesus that amount to treating him as divine had become widely shared in various Christian circles.
What is helpful in Hurtado’s contribution to this conversation about earliest Christianity is his coverage of the practices, not just the statements of belief, found in Paul’s letters. And so Hurtado reviews Paul’s description of prayers to Jesus, invocation of Jesus, baptism in his name, ritual observance of his “Supper” (in which Jesus was regarded as present), hymns in praise to Jesus, and prophecies attributed to Jesus speaking to someone. All of this, especially within a few years (days) of Jesus’ execution, is remarkable phenomena.
Certainly Paul’s work was a “departure” in one area: the invitation of Gentiles to come to God on the basis of their faith in Jesus rather than observance of Torah law. But Hurtado says that this reinforces the point: While Paul goes to great pains to explain his commission to the Gentiles, his references without defense or explanation to a devotion to a divine Jesus who died a saving death reinforces the fact that such views were prior to Paul. Indeed, as he writes in 1 Cor. 11:23-26, what he “received” he “passed on.”
Next Up: An examination of the “Q” source(s).
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