Ancient Jewish Monotheism and Early Christian Jesus-Devotion harvests from Larry W. Hurtado's lifetime of study of the New Testament and the development of early Christianity. Hurtado's career of historical and literary research spans forty years and emphasizes both continuity and discontinuity in the origins of the Christian faith. This volume displays Hurtado's command of the nature, shape, and implications of Christ-devotion for understanding Christian origins. Hurtado begins with the scholarly framework for understanding Christ-devotionaengaging key figures from Bousset and Bultmann to Bauckham and Wright. The next section maps the first-century Jewish devotional, liturgical, and theological contexts in which the early church and its worshiping life first emerged. Phenomenological investigations follow that set Christian innovation in the context of ancient Jewish monotheism, focusing specifically on the experiential factors shaping early Christian faith and devotional practices. The focus turns finally to the surprising ways in which the innovative, Jesus-centered beliefs and worship formed early Christian self-expression and identity. The volume concludes with a survey of some significant concrete implications of the distinctive dyadic devotional pattern that erupted early and spread widely. Even as this collection traces the historical narrative of Christian origins through the lens of Christology and devotion, it also forms an inclusive testament to one scholar's outstanding contributions to the ongoing discussion of what made early Christianity powerfully unique in its historical setting. Quintessential Hurtado, this volume is a necessity for any attempt to understand the diversity of factors at play in the birth of Christianity.

The consequences of becoming a Christian in the early Christian movemen is set apart from that move from any other religious affiliation. You could become a Mithraist or Isiac or whatever, and it made no difference to your previous religious activities and loyalties. You continued to take part in the worship of your inherited deities of household, city, nation. But if you became a Christian you were expected to desist from worship of all other deities. And the ubiquitous place of the gods in all spheres of social and political activity made that difficult, and made for potentially serious consequences if you did desist. Indeed, it made it difficult to know how you could function socially and politically (to use our terminology).This book explores the growth of adherents to early Christianity; that all across this early period people became adherents of Christianity in the face of the costs and consequences of doing so.

In "How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?" Larry Hurtado investigates the intense devotion to Jesus that emerged with surprising speed after his death. Reverence for Jesus among early Christians, notes Hurtado, included both grand claims about Jesus' significance and a pattern of devotional practices that effectively treated him as divine. This book argues that whatever one makes of such devotion to Jesus, the subject deserves serious historical consideration.

Mapping out the lively current debate about Jesus, Hurtado explains the evidence, issues, and positions at stake. He goes on to treat the opposition to -- and severe costs of -- worshiping Jesus, the history of incorporating such devotion into Jewish monotheism, and the role of religious experience in Christianity's development out of Judaism. The follow-up to Hurtado's award-winning "Lord Jesus Christ" (2003), this book provides compelling answers to queries about the development of the church's belief in the divinity of Jesus.

The essays included in this volume present Larry W. Hurtado's steadfast analysis of the earliest Christian manuscripts. In these chapters, Hurtado considers not only standard text-critical issues which seek to uncover an earliest possible version of a text, but also the very manuscripts that are available to us. As one of the pre-eminent scholars of the field, Hurtado examines often overlooked 2nd and 3rd century artefacts, which are among the earliest manuscripts available, drawing fascinating conclusions about the features of early Christianity. Divided into two halves, the first part of the volume addresses text-critical and text-historical issues about the textual transmission of various New Testament writings. The second part looks at manuscripts as physical and visual artefacts themselves, exploring the metadata and sociology of their context and the nature of their first readers, for the light cast upon early Christianity. Whilst these essays are presented together here as a republished collection, Hurtado has made several updates across the collection to draw them together and to reflect on the developing nature of the issues that they address since they were first written.

The essays included in this volume present Larry W. Hurtado's steadfast analysis of the earliest Christian manuscripts. In these chapters, Hurtado considers not only standard text-critical issues which seek to uncover an earliest possible version of a text, but also the very manuscripts that are available to us. As one of the pre-eminent scholars of the field, Hurtado examines often overlooked 2nd and 3rd century artefacts, which are among the earliest manuscripts available, drawing fascinating conclusions about the features of early Christianity. Divided into two halves, the first part of the volume addresses text-critical and text-historical issues about the textual transmission of various New Testament writings. The second part looks at manuscripts as physical and visual artefacts themselves, exploring the metadata and sociology of their context and the nature of their first readers, for the light cast upon early Christianity. Whilst these essays are presented together here as a republished collection, Hurtado has made several updates across the collection to draw them together and to reflect on the developing nature of the issues that they address since they were first written.

"Silly," "stupid," "irrational," "simple." "Wicked," "hateful," "obstinate," "anti-social." "Extravagant," "perverse." The Roman world rendered harsh judgments upon early Christianityaincluding branding Christianity "new." Novelty was no Roman religious virtue. Nevertheless,as Larry W. Hurtado shows in Destroyer of the gods , Christianity thrived despite its new and distinctive features and opposition to them. Unlike nearly all other religious groups, Christianity utterly rejected the traditional gods of the Roman world. Christianity also offered a new and different kind of religious identity, one not based on ethnicity. Christianity was distinctively a "bookish" religion, with the production, copying, distribution, and reading of texts as central to its faith, even preferring a distinctive book-form, the codex. Christianity insisted that its adherents behave differently: unlike the simple ritual observances characteristic of the pagan religious environment, embracing Christian faith meant a behavioral transformation, with particular and novel ethical demands for men. Unquestionably, to the Roman world, Christianity was both new and different, and, to a good many, it threatened social and religious conventions of the day. In the rejection of the gods and in the centrality of texts, early Christianity obviously reflected commitments inherited from its Jewish origins. But these particular features were no longer identified with Jewish ethnicity and early Christianity quickly became aggressively trans-ethnicaa novel kind of religious movement. Its ethical teaching, too, bore some resemblance to the philosophers of the day, yet in contrast with these great teachers and their small circles of dedicated students, early Christianity laid its hard demands upon all adherents from the moment of conversion, producing a novel social project. Christianity's novelty was no badge of honor. Called atheists and suspected ofpolitical subversion, Christiansearned Roman disdain and suspicion in equal amounts. Yet, as Destroyer of the gods demonstrates, inan irony of history the very features of early Christianity that rendered it distinctive and objectionable in Roman eyes have now become so commonplace in Western culture as to go unnoticed. Christianity helped destroy one world and create another.

Larry Hurtado's One God, One Lord has been described as 'one of the most important and provocative Christologies of all time' (Alan F. Segal). The book has taken its place among works on Jesus as one consistently cited, consistently read, and consistently examined in scholarly discourse. Hurtado examines the early cultic devotion to Jesus through a range of Jewish sources. Hurtado outlines an early 'high' Christological theology, showing how the Christ of faith emerges from monotheistic Judaism. The book has already found a home on the shelves of many in its two previous editions. In this new Cornerstones edition Hurtado provides a substantial epilogue of some twenty-thousand words, which brings this ground-breaking work to the fore once more, in a format accessible to scholars and students alike.

This book is the first ever collection of scholarly essays in English devoted specifically to the theme of the expression 'son of man'. It describes the major competing theories which have addressed questions such as: What is the original Aramaic expression which lies behind the Greek phrase, and what was its original connotation? How do the gospel writers use the expression 'son of man'? Is it a Christological title, pregnant with meaning, much like the titles son of God, Christ/Messiah, and son of David? Is it used as a way of designating Jesus as a human being of unique redemptive significance? Or does it rather originate in a nuanced use (obscured in Greek translation) of an Aramaic expression used in place of the first person pronoun, as an indefinite pronoun, or for generic statements about human beings? Larry Hurtado and Paul Owen have brought together contributing scholars on the basis of their expertise in Aramaic, historical Jesus research, the son of man debate itself, and related fields of research.

This bookis the first ever collection of scholarly essays in English devoted specifically to the theme of the expression 'son of man'. Itdescribes the major competing theories which have addressed questions such as: What is the original Aramaic expression which lies behind the Greek phrase, and what was its original connotation? How do the gospel writers use the expression 'son of man'? Is it a Christological title, pregnant with meaning, much like the titles son of God, Christ/Messiah, and son of David? Is it used as a way of designating Jesus as a human being of unique redemptive significance? Or does it rather originate in a nuanced use (obscured in Greek translation) of an Aramaic expression used in place of the first person pronoun, as an indefinite pronoun, or for generic statements about human beings? Larry Hurtado and Paul Owen have brought together contributing scholars on the basis of theirexpertise in Aramaic, historical Jesus research, the son of man debate itself, and related fields of research.

God in New Testament Theology analyzes the various New Testament conceptions of God and suggests how they can best contribute to a contemporary constructive theology.

In this important new volume in the Library of Biblical Theology, Larry W. Hurtado introduces the different understandings of God that arise in the books of the New Testament, and explores the ramifications of those views for contemporary theology.

Questions covered include: Why has the subject of God received comparatively little attention in much contemporary New Testament scholarship? Is the Christian God of the New Testament the same deity described in the Old Testament? What impact does the New Testament's emphasis on Jesus have for its discourse about God? How do New Testament references to the Divine "Spirit" affect its understanding of God? Given the diversity of the New Testament writings, is it possible to speak of a sole New Testament view of God? How should contemporary theology understand the triadic shape of New Testament discourse about God in light of the later development of the doctrine of the Trinity?

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Synopsis: This book uses insights from a modern theory of communication, Relevance Theory, to examine the function of the particle i(/na SET IN SpIonic] in New Testament Greek. It claims that the particle does not have a lexical meaning of "in order that," contrary to accepted wisdom, but that it alerts the reader to expect an interpretation of the thought or attitude of the implied speaker or author. Evidence is adduced from pagan Greek and in particular the writings of Polybius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Epictetus, as well as the New Testament. The implications of this claim give an opportunity for a fresh interpretation of many problematic texts. Endorsement: "This timely and fascinating study is of interest, not only to biblical scholars, but also to those interested in linguistic theory. Margaret Sim's original study of the 'purpose' marker i3na utilises the notion of metarepresentation, familiar from Relevance Theory, to provide new insight into the interpretation of certain key texts in the Gospels. In so doing, she shows how the ideas of theoretical pragmatics can be brought to bear on the study of other fields to enable new and exciting perspectives to be opened up on difficult problems of translation and interpretation." Ronnie Cann, University of Edinburgh "A model dissertation accounting for an important, long-ignored question. Literary and non-literary extra-biblical sources have been considered and the perspective is diachronic, distinguishing earlier and later usage from that of the New Testament. It is grounded in linguistic theory but free of jargon and intelligible to those not trained in Linguistics." Carl W. Conrad, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri This is a major, innovative thesis in which insights from linguistic study (Relevance Theory) are used to free our understanding of the Greek particle i3na from the shackles of a fixed lexical meaning to one that is based on the communicator's intention, thus widening its scope from the traditional translation as 'in order that' (purpose). The implications of this carefully argued monograph for the interpretation of theological texts in the New Testament, especially those that are generally assumed to deal with divine purposes, are highly significant." I. Howard Marshall, University of Aberdeen "Dr. Margaret Sim has an excellent solution to the problem that one Greek word can introduce very different clauses--expressing purpose or result, but also requests wishes and opinions. Using Relevance Theory from linguistics, and well aware of the long history of the Greek language, she infers that we do not have a word with one meaning which has been 'weakened, ' but rather a word whose function is to signal a thought about a state of affairs which is potential rather than actual. Drawing examples from wider Hellenistic Greek, and from our own use of language, she throws a flood of light on difficult biblical passages." David Mealand, University of Edinburgh Author Biography: Margaret G. Sim is an International Translation Consultant with SIL and has been lecturing in New Testament at Africa International University since 1992.

Much attention has been paid to the words of the earliest Christian canonical and extracanonical texts, yet Larry Hurtado points out that an even more telling story is being overlooked -- the story of the physical texts themselves.

Widely recognized for his outstanding scholarship, Hurtado combines his comprehensive knowledge of Christian origins with an archivists eye to make sense of these earliest objects of the faith. He introduces readers to the staurogram, possibly the first representation of the cross, the "nomina sacra," a textual abbreviation system, and the puzzling Christian preference for book-like texts over scrolls.

Drawing on studies by papyrologists and palaeographers as well as New Testament scholars -- and including photographic plates of selected manuscripts-- "The Earliest Christian Artifacts" astutely introduces the distinctive physical features of early Christian manuscripts, illustrating their relevance for wider inquiry into the complex origins of Christianity.

What is the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and what do we know about the community that possessed them? Avoiding both popular sensationalism and specialist technical language, this book aims to integrate all the latest findings about the scrolls into existing knowledge of the period, to advance understanding of the scrolls and the Qumran community, and to explore their wider significance in a scholarly and accessible way. The "state of the art" in international scrolls scholarship. Contributors include E.P. Sanders, Eugene Ulrich, George Brooke, and John J. Collins.

This volume makes a valuable contribution to the debate about the origins and development of Christianity. Larry Hurtado argues that understanding the nature of Christianity in the first century requires taking full account of the first Christians' devotional practices because worship was the context in which christological titles and other expressions of faith were given their specific meaning-a fact that has largely been ignored. Hurtado focuses on two distinguishing characteristics of earliest Christian worship: its exclusivity (rejecting the worship of other deities) and its "binitarian" shape (the veneration of Christ alongside God the Father). Setting early Christianity within the religious environment of the Roman era, Hurtado describes the features of Christianity that attracted followers and led them to renounce other religions. He then turns his attention to a more detailed discussion of the place of Christ in the monotheistic worship of the earliest Christians, showing that Christ figured in their public and corporate devotional life at a surprisingly early stage. The book concludes with some reflections for Christian worship today based on the historical features of early Christian devotional practices. Clear, illuminating, and relevant to the modern church, this volume will be of interest to scholars, pastors, students, and general readers seeking insight into the origins of Christian faith and practice.

This book examines the textual characteristics and relationships of important early Greek manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark (chiefly Codex Washingtonianus [W], and also Family 13 and P45), and challenges the generally accepted view that these manuscripts are witnesses to an early stage of Caesarean text-type. "Dr. Hurtado makes a significant contribution to the investigation of New Testament Greek manuscripts." - Bruce Metzger

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 encouragepeople 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.

After playing second fiddle to the apostle Paul for a long, long time, Peter has received increased scholarly attention of late. This book builds on the recent resurgence of interest in the apostle Peter. Nineteen internationally prominent scholars of early Christian history here examine and reassess the historical Peter and his significance in Christian texts from the first three centuries. Giving due attention to archaeological data and recent scholarship, the contributors offer a comprehensive view of Peter through analysis of both New Testament texts and later, noncanonical literature. Markus Bockmuehl concludes the volume by considering present-day questions about the role of Peter, popes, and church leadership.

The six biblical manuscripts that reside in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington DC are historically significant artifacts for tracing the early history of the transmission of the writings that make up the New Testament and the Septuagint. The manuscripts, all purchased in Egypt at the beginning of the twentieth century by Charles Freer, date to the third through fifth centuries and include codices of the four Gospels, Deuteronomy and Joshua, the Psalms, and the Pauline Epistles, as well as a Coptic codex of the Psalms and a papyrus codex of the Minor Prophets, which, until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, was the earliest Greek manuscript of the Minor Prophets known. The ten essays in this volume are a notable collection of fresh scholarship with long-term value for the study of what is a small but highly valuable treasure trove of biblical manuscripts. The contributors are Malcolm Choat, Kent D. Clarke, Kristin De Troyer, Timothy J. Finney, Dennis Haugh, Larry W. Hurtado, J. Bruce Prior, Jean-Francois Racine, James R. Royse, Ulrich Schmid, and Thomas A. Wayment. Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org)