Lord Jesus Christ, by Larry Hurtado, Part 12: Inside the "furnace"

VISIONS OF THE exalted Christ, prophetic oracles, inspired songs and charismatic exegesis of biblical texts - these comprise perhaps the primary examples of the validating religious experiences of the earliest circles of Christianity.

Yesterday we saw how these experiences would have provided the necessary "furnace" to enable and demand that a serious reconfiguration of the existing Jewish devotional matrix be undertaken. Today, then, we can enumerate these various sorts of religious experience.

1. Visions - I note with interest Hurtado's openness to the centrality of the Spirit via his referencing here of 1 Cor. 14:26, which is most powerfully manifest in a collective setting. Think about it: in these revelations, the Spirit is pivotal to making the resurrected Son central alongside the Father.

2. Prophetic oracles and inspired songs  - again this is not every lone Christian experience, but a feature of the shared experience of the group. Interestingly, we have access to some of the productions of this period through some of Paul's citations of hymns known to his recipients (e.g. Phil. 2:6-11). There was no literary brilliance involved either: These were not the products of trained poets but arose out of the religious exaltation of Christians (p. 73).

3. "Charismatic exegesis" - it is interesting to reflect on the very real possibility that Hurtado provides us that integrating a revisitation of the Old Testament texts (also considered to be inspired by the Holy Spirit) could be part of this communal furnace experience. We can tend to associate analysis of biblical texts as a serious and considered preoccupation that is available to a few from the pulpit and the rest of us at home (in light of that pulpit). Not so the first Christians! In particular, Hurtado shows some legitimate wonder at the usage of the highly monotheistic text of Isaiah 45:23 in Philippians 2:10-11, where Christ gets to be Kyrios in this Old Testament passage!

In addition to these aspects, Hurtado also considers that prayer for divine revelations would have featured, and indeed invigorated fresh inquiry into their Jewish scriptures.

It is this highly experiential life and breath understood through the lens of the Spirit that would have permitted such rapid and intense proportions of Jesus devotion to occur. For me, that might make three, even or perhaps particularly in the context of worship.

Come back tomorrow for Part 13: The Religious Environment, which will see us complete the four factors Hurtado provides for the emergence and shape of Christian devotion to Jesus in the first century. Before I go - ever so grateful to Dr. Hurtado for recommending this series on his own blog, I hope any newcomers from there are enjoying the style and approach I've adopted. We are not too far now from the end of chapter 1, at which point I will provide a summary with Hurtado's chapter structure and my corresponding posts for ease of access.

Lord Jesus Christ, by Larry Hurtado, Part 11: Religious Experience

Christ-devotion quickly amounted to what may be regarded as an unparalleled innovation, a “mutation” or new variant form of exclusivist monotheism in which a second figure (Jesus) was programmatically included with God in the devotional pattern of Christian groups. Outside the Jewish-Christian circles in which this binitarian pattern arose, the characteristic force of exclusivist monotheism seems to have prevented any other figure being treated as rightful recipient of cultic devotion, just as this monotheistic constraint served in early Christian circles to work against any additional figures other than God and Jesus being accorded such reverence. (My emphasis. p. 64)

Despite what we noticed yesterday about the polarising effects of Jesus' words and actions, Hurtado is the first to recognise that this is hardly sufficient explanation for the mutation described above. Rather, it is the combination of the constraint of monotheism, the polarisation and religious experiences with "revelatory validity", as Hurtado aptly puts it, that will cause this initially-Jewish movement to "mutate". Similarly to the caution our author extends to the content of the polarisation Jesus caused, we also should satisfy ourselves not with the content of these experiences per se, rather see that these experiences did indeed validate the solidifying belief structures and devotional practices of the earliest Christian communities. Surely, I thought to myself, as I first read through this section with gusto back in May, we are going to be introduced to the central role of the Holy Spirit for these communities? How will Hurtado articulate that centrality within his "binitarian" model? While that question must be left to hang for the rest of the book, Hurtado obviously must integrate discussion at this stage on the Spirit.

First, he notes that these crucial experiences have tended to be sidelined in many historical studies, which prefer to focus on more theological doctrines. Gunkel, writing way back in 1888, is briefly alluded to as a watershed publication on the Spirit's importance for Paul. A few pages are available of this translated work are available as a sample on the Amazon website and are worth a visit:

It cannot be disputed that even at Paul's position at this point in his teaching [the period of his life when he was writing his epistles] can be properly understood and evaluated only when we first consider the ideas that were first available to the apostle within Christian circles. (p. 9)

We must designate Judaism as the real matrix of the gospel (p. 13)

In the matter of the Spirit's activities, we have to do with an ancient Hebrew or perhaps primitive Semitic conception that had undergone only slight changes in the apostolic age. 

In the eyes of the primitive Christian community [this daily experience of the Holy Spirit] render[s] the presence of the Spirit an undeniable fact. 

If the notion of Spirit in ancient Israel had not been uncommonly vivid, a fact that can often enough be proved with examples, then its origin and persistence throughout many centuries up to the apostolic age would be totally inconceivable.

We are dealing here with an idea that was unusually vital in primitive Christianity. (p. 14)

Impressive. Without having accessed this work yet in full, it seems clear that Gunkel had a similar project to Hurtado and ourselves today, although with respect to the Spirit.

Hurtado also cites again his great sparring partner, Dunn, with a great quote from Jesus and the Spirit:

Dunn insisted that we also have to grant “the creative power of his own religious experience—a furnace which melted many concepts in its fires and poured them forth into new moulds. . . . Nothing should be allowed to obscure that fact.” (LJC p. 66)

This is absolute dynamite. What these experiences provide for then is the veritable "furnace" that we are looking for that would permit such rapid reconfigurations of such slowly-developed religious worldviews as Jewish monotheism - and God's experiential Spirit is at the heart of that.

Hurtado explores some of the ins and outs of the argumentation in the literature that basically concludes that these experiences can be genuinely innovative, even if fuelled by traceable influences.

Time to delve into what those experiences must have been; top of the list is obvious: the resurrected Christ (pp. 71-72), which would have led to the following convictions:

(1) that God had released Jesus from death, so that it really is Jesus, not merely his memory or influence, who lives again; (2) that God has bestowed on Jesus uniquely a glorious new form of existence, immortal and eschatological bodily life; (3) that Jesus has also been exalted to a unique heavenly status, thus presiding by God’s appointment over the redemptive program; and (4) that those who were given these special encounters with the risen Jesus were divinely commissioned to proclaim Jesus’ exalted status and to summon people to recognize in his resurrection/exaltation the signal that the eschatological moment of redemption has arrived. (My emphasis. p. 72 )

My sense is that this commissioning and eschatological status of the Christians' new era were profoundly connected to the marked and experienced empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Thus, we are not describing simply "visions" of the resurrected Jesus, but veritable "experiences" of him that empowered his followers with extraordinary purpose. Let us turn briefly to Gordon Fee's Paul, the Spirit and the People of God (Hodder & Stoughton):

The Spirit as an experienced and empowering reality was for Paul and his churches the key player in all of Christian life, from beginning to end. (xv)

In the case of the Spirit we are dealing with the essential matter of early Christian experience [...which] was how the early believers came to understand themselves as living at the beginning of the end times [...] the Spirit was guarantee that God would conclude what he had begun in Christ (= Paul's eschatological framework).  (emphasis original. pp. 2-3)

The experience of the Holy Spirit and of Christ through the Spirit seem to be central to Gunkel and Fee's perspective of these pre-Pauline communities, but Hurtado keeps his focus on the post-resurrection experience of Jesus. He continues from the previous citation on p. 72:... likely involved an encounter with a figure recognized as Jesus but also exhibiting features that convinced the recipients that he had been clothed with divine-like glory and given a unique heavenly status. This description appears to me reminiscent, although not for Hurtado, of the Daniel 7 depiction of the Son of Man. Regardless, it is this exalted experience of Christ that would lead to the necessity to venerate him accordingly, which as revealed and required by God himself, the mutation is not simply justified but mandatory.

We will pause there for today - in the next post we will look at three example forms that these religious experiences most certainly took.

Lord Jesus Christ, by Larry Hurtado, Part 10: Jesus, the polarizing figure, just like Marmite...

JESUS IN BOTH life and memory polarized his listeners.

Today, we move away at last from our discussion around monotheism - Larry Hurtado's first of four factors governing the early emergence of first century "binitarian" Christian worship - and move over to his second factor: Jesus himself. In the previous section, we saw that monotheism provided a constraining influence on the practice of devotion to Jesus, we established some of the contours of what appears to be Hurtado's usage of the word "binitarian" and we questioned the effects and meaning of the inclusion of gentile converts (ex-polytheists). On this last point - just to situate anyone joining us at this point - as an advocate for an early Jewish-Christian form of trinitarian faith, I am asking the question of some of Hurtado's key factors of binitarian devotion: might the Holy Spirit also have been pivotal for such an historic development? More of that in the next post.

Back to Jesus. It might sound like an obvious point, but theologians and historians of Christian origins can do a lot of speculating, postulating and theorising around this or that feature of Christianity and somehow avoid the man himself. I've probably been guilty of that too. Hurtado is not, however, although he will also wisely avoid plunging himself too deeply off-track into appraisals of this or that movement to rediscover what "the historical Jesus" might have required in terms of religious veneration. The material to cover is too vast and the primary point that emerges for his own thesis does not depend on a specific reconstruction, because our author will point to the polarizing effects of Jesus on his followers both during his earthly ministry and in his subsequent memory as resurrected and exalted Lord.

Like Marmite is cleverly promoted through its early image of being a spread British consumers either loved or hated (I love it!), Jesus seems to have thrust a radical choice onto his hearers. Either they accept him as God's messiah of a truly biblical, transformational and inclusive humanity, or you reject him (and repeat, on whatever serious subject matter is necessary). What you don't do, says Hurtado, is adopt some unsubstantiated pacifistic Jesus, who was only made into a polarizing force at some later stage (roughly in this camp: Hurtado tackles Geza Vermes, Burton Mack and, most significantly for me, John Dominic Crossan).

Nonetheless, the bridging mechanism between the polarized Jesus of the church and the polarizing Galilean I felt was not very strongly emphasised by Hurtado in response to authors like Mack: there was likely something in Jesus’ own actions and statements that generated, or at least contributed to, this polarization. In response to Crossan, he is stronger: if [Jesus] intended no special role for himself in their religious life, Jesus would have to be seen as spectacularly unsuccessful in communicating his intentions to his followers. [KL 1088] 

Responding to Mack he responds with solid appeals for proof: we do have direct evidence of how Jesus’ sayings were used by a number of Christian circles and none of these circles corresponds to the sort of group that Mack posits. [KL 1134] 

Hurtado is referring to an argument from Mack, which appears to be substantially based on "Q", which we will be discussing this in more depth later in the series (and always including the quotes around "Q"). W, Hurtado is loyal to the "Q" hypothesis, which is indeed backed by a majority of scholars writing on the synoptic problem, but intercepts Mack's inferences - since it contains primarily sayings of Jesus and lacks central Christian doctrines on the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, Mack claims at the very beginning around when "Q" was written those components weren't yet present in the thinking of Jesus' followers.

All of this said, however, it is still curious to note that Hurtado keeps this mental reserve for some gap between what the impact of Jesus and what Jesus' intentions may have been: "in any case, whether in keeping with his intention or not, people were polarized over Jesus" [KL 1091]. We should understand then that what he is tackling is that there can be any scope for a phase during or after Jesus' earthly life in which the primary response to his words and actions was indifference. Not happenin'.

To close, Hurtado summarizes it best: "the immediate and dominant outcome of Jesus’ career was a sharply divided set of views about him, with some so negative as to justify his crucifixion and some so positive as to form the basis of one or more new religious movements" [KL 1162]

Before I sign off, I just wanted to flag that this is the context for the fascinating idea I cited from Hurtado before, right at the start of the series, about dysfunctional or unsuccessful religious mutations. Tracking the christianities that succeeded as mutations from Judaism is, I think, of great interest, especially if we want to claim (like I do) that the Holy Spirit's centrality could not have been a subsequent mutation. With this in mind, and with the glorious benefit of hindsight (!), it is tempting to hold up the mutated triune hub of successful Christianity as the measuring stick of "success" during the first two centuries in particular.