Professor Larry Hurtado, a prominent New Testament scholar, passed away on Monday [1]. He was highly respected in his field, as the tribute at Christianity Today and others posted by his colleagues and students can attest. Although a stranger living on another continent, he had a significant impact on me.
Until about three years ago, I didn’t know that New Testament study was a serious scholarly discipline. I think it was Dr. Bart Ehrman, a New Testament scholar and New York Times bestseller, who brought the discipline of NT study into the forefront of public consciousness, and caused no small controversies and scholarly debates. The fact that scholars can draw so many different, even contrary, conclusions from the same data made me curious, if not suspicious, about the whole discipline. So I started to google for answers, and fortuitously stumbled upon Prof. Hurtado’s blog, having no idea who he was, except that he was an emeritus professor and a scholar by his own admission.
Prof. Hurtado had no tolerance for fools and trolls. Commenters on his blog who didn’t know what they were talking about but were foolish enough to make blank assertions would often receive a public beatdown. For instance, when he took up the gauntlet, and entered into a bout with the “mythicists”, i.e., people who deny that Jesus existed as a real human being, it was very entertaining and informative at the same time. Those blog posts are fun to read—unless you are the target of his criticism.
It took me a while to gather enough courage to ask the professor a question at his blog, two years ago almost to the date, the one burning question I had at the time: “How do New Testament scholars evaluate the quality of their own works?”
The professor didn’t answer my question directly, but I think his own works are exemplary specimens of good scholarship: mastery of all relevant data and full engagement with other scholars. He was willing to represent different views fairly [2], and evaluate them based on evidence and probable inference.
Prof. Hurtado put great emphasis on (textual) evidence in scholarship, which perhaps led him to a rather unique, or, to borrow one of his phrases, “distinctive”, stance in Christology: On the one hand, the texts of the NT show that Jesus was not God incarnate, but God’s Chief Agent – he adamantly steered clear of Trinitarian language; on the other hand, the NT texts show that Jesus was worshipped together with God, almost immediately after His death, because God exalted Him to divine glory and status, and commanded the believers to worship Jesus. His engagement with Dr. Richard Bauckham, who seems to hold the Trinitarian view, is a good example of respectful and informative dialogue. I wish they had also demonstrated a way to resolve differences and reach a consensus. When I asked him for further clarification on his view, he graciously answered my pointed questions.
As far as I know, Prof. Hurtado was the only New Testament scholar who was willing to engage and inform non-scholars, freely and promptly, via blog and email. I pounced on this rare learning opportunity, and “pestered” him with many questions. He answered them persistently, often within 24 hours. However, he also made it clear that he was annoyed, and his answers were often short and dismissive [3]. Perhaps I presumed too much on his kindness and generosity. For I was not willing to simply accept his magisterial conclusions, but pressed him to explain how he came to those conclusions, when I couldn’t follow his reasoning. The professor didn’t entertain any non-scholar to challenge scholarly opinions.
Prof. Hurtado was a great teacher. First, he had the ability to make complex issues seem absurdly simple to general readers. Second, his passion for the subject was very contagious, and inspired his readers to explore further. I’ve learned a lot from his blogposts, and his essays, which he generously shared on his blog. His writings are clear, concise, and eminently readable. His book on the Earliest Christian Artifacts led me to write a blog series Exploring Leuven Database of Ancient Books, venturing into subjects that were entirely new and unknown to me.
Notes:
- ^1. I first learned about this from Dr. Kruger’s blog. Prof. Hurtado was his doktorvater.
- ^2. He inspired me to write a post on open-mindedness two years ago.
- ^3. Apparently exasperated by my persistent questioning, he dropped a F-bomb once in a short email reply, followed a few minutes later by another in a more explanatory tone. I would have suspected an impostor, but an anecdote told by someone who knew him personally assured me that the F word was indeed part of the professor’s vocabulary.
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