Lord Jesus Christ, by Larry Hurtado, Part 14: Jesus Worship Roundup

LARRY HURTADO HAS given us in this opening chapter some great content to think about, but perhaps most importantly, he has provided for us a meaningful and (we shall see) workable model in which conversations about Christology and Jesus-worship can be situated. I'll give an example of what I mean in a second, but we really should first give that model in its most summary form. Here I also include the corresponding posts to each of Hurtado's factors and some of the introductory posts in order to give as comprehensive a summary as possible.

Hurtado section/factor	Post
“Unwrapping” my book	Unsuccessful Mutations
Introduction	Part 2: Introduction
Introduction	Part 3: Opening words of "Centrality" hit the nail on the head
Introduction	Part 4: No to history-of-religions explanations; No to naive Christian apologetics explanations.
Chapter 1: Forces and Factors Jewish monotheism	Part 5: Forces and Factors: "the decisive criterion"
Chapter 1: Forces and Factors Jewish monotheism	Part 6: mid-first century and late-first century Christian worship perspectives Here I began to press a little harder to scope the breadth of meaning contained in Hurtado’s important use of “binitarian”, with a view that Dunn’s evolutionary model could be both compatible and manifest the diversity to which Hurtado holds.
Chapter 1: Forces and Factors Jewish monotheism	Part 7: Response from Dr Hurtado
Chapter 1: Forces and Factors Jewish monotheism	Part 8: the line no-one ever crossed
Chapter 1: Forces and Factors Jewish monotheism in Christianity	Part 9: what does Hurtado mean by "binitarian" and monotheism effects on Jesus worship
Chapter 1: Forces and Factors           Jesus	Part 10: Jesus, the polarizing figure, just like Marmite...
Chapter 1: Forces and Factors           Religious Experience	Part 11: Religious Experience
Chapter 1: Forces and Factors           Religious Experience	Part 12: Inside the "furnace"
Chapter 1: Forces and Factors           Religious Environment	Part 13: The Religious Environment

Now I did warn readers that this series was not to be understood as chapter summaries, but I had no idea then just how much I was going to write. I don't know what the word count is for Chapter 1 in Lord Jesus Christ, but it can't have been a whole lot briefer at over 12000 words over the thirteen posts here! Whoops. But that is a good segue to promote the actual reading of the material I have been discussing for yourself. As was evident from my use of Kindle Locations in the earlier posts (I worked out a way in the end of identifying page numbers), my copy was purchased from Kindle. At times I wished I had purchased the paper version, but at other times it was very useful to be able to use the electronic format, especially when doing searches (e.g. for a key conceptual term or for a cited author).

I mentioned above that perhaps the most useful contribution here from Hurtado is the actual structure itself, which helps situate our Christological and theological conversations. Without the content he has provided in that structure (in summary form only remember - the rest of the book is devoted to filling it and bolstering it from the first 160 years of Christianity), the model would obviously fall flat, so we can consider that the two do indeed go together. Now, I mentioned very early on in the series that this book brings the reader to consider what they might think about various issues that perhaps they didn't even know people held views about! Once confronted with the options and the evidence, you can no longer remain indifferent - you are engaged in a significantly deeper level of inquiry and can't look back. An example of how this plays out could be in the Jesus section we covered in Part 10. The content that Hurtado provides in summary form focuses primarily on the effect of Jesus on people. Just like Marmite, by promoting a love/hate response, the object or subject in question has a tendency of "going viral". It's a great point and is situated well within the "Jesus" factor. But of course, more could be said. Simply because of Hurtado's methodology, my own thinking is now probing the reflective space that it opens up for me and I find myself wondering: "what about Jesus' devotion to God"? That question is also situated within the Jesus factor even though Hurtado does not treat it. My point is that if you had simply asked me to discuss Jesus devotion more loosely, I am not sure I would have considered this aspect.

OK - it's time for me to have a break now, so back in a few days. Thanks again for your interactions and your time.