Having grown up as an atheist, I used to treat all religious practices with contempt. Even after my conversion to theism, rituals and liturgy have remained alien to me, partly by choice, partly due to circumstances. My experience and understanding of Christianity have been mostly on the intellectual level.
In this regard, Prof. Hurtado made a significant impact on me, as he piqued my interest in the lives of the earliest Christians, what they did in their private and public devotion, and more importantly, why. I also think this type of studies would help to inform and reform the lives and practices of Christians today, even my own.
Synopsis
Unlike many other scholars who have focused on theological and Christological beliefs expressed in the New Testament, Prof. Hurtado has focused his research efforts on the practices of earliest Christians, noting that religion in the ancient world is eminently practical, ubiquitous and diverse, quite distinct from the philosophy and theology of the “sophisticates”.
There is a “constellation” of Christian devotional practices that in Hurtado’s view constitutes worship, namely, prayer, invocation and confession, baptism, hymns, sacred meal (Lord’s Supper) and prophesy. This distinguishes Christianity both from Judaism and paganism. From Judaism, because no other figure in Jewish history was accorded devotion like this; From Paganism, because the devotion was offered exclusively to God and Christ.[1]
Unanswered Questions
Question: Did the earliest Christian devotion to Jesus constitute worship as Jews worshipped God?
Another prominent New Testament scholar, Prof. James Dunn, argued that the earliest Christians did not worship Jesus as Jews worshiped God. Prof. Hurtado seemed to concede this point, but argued that, nevertheless, earliest Christians did worship Jesus with reference to and alongside God, because the constellation of their corporate devotion practices constitute worship which involves Jesus as the center.
The earliest Christians, i.e., Jewish believers, offered sacrifice to God in the Temple (as related in Acts). If they didn’t offer the same sacrifice to Jesus, this would seem to not only contradict Hurtado’s claim that Jesus was central in their devotional life, but also suggest a significant difference between Jesus and God as the object of worship. Moreover, if the Jewish believers continued to worship in the Temple, whereas the Gentile believers didn’t and couldn’t, one would expect dissension and division between the two groups. Interestingly, no such division can be detected in the writings in the NT. There are disagreements about circumcision, but not Temple worship.
It is true that people worship in many different ways, but Temple worship is the only legitimate form of worship, both because it is prescribed by the Law, and because it represents the covenant between God and Israel, if I understand it correctly. When I read the Old Testament, I cannot help but be impressed how central the Tabernacle/Temple was to Israel. First, the Israelites were delivered from hard-labor in Egypt for the express purpose of offering sacrifices to God and serving Him. Second, when Solomon became King, one of the first things he did was to fulfill the life-long wish of his father King David: build a Temple to the Lord. Third, after the 70-year Babylonian captivity, when the Israelites returned from exile to their homeland, one of the first things they did was to rebuild the Temple that had been destroyed.
Given the importance of Temple worship, I don’t think the argument that the earliest Christians devotion to Jesus did not constitute worship as Jews worshiped has been adequately addressed.
Question: Why did the earliest Christians choose these specific forms of worship?
Unfortunately, we know precious little about Jewish devotional practices in the Second Temple period, and the little we know about Christian practices were mainly gleaned from the New Testament. There is no standard prayer book, not liturgy. So we cannot draw a detailed comparison between contemporary Jewish and Christian practices.
If they are quite different, as Hurtado seems to conclude, it begs the question: Why would any Jew, who was prescribed by the Law to worship God in certain ways, choose to worship another figure in different ways? Hurtado proposes that the earliest Christians believed that they were required to worship Jesus, and that, in worshipping Jesus, they glorify God. If so, why are there no written records of any divine instructions on the worship of Jesus, comparable to those on the worship of the God of Israel? It seems unlikely that the Almighty, who is very particular about worship, would make it a free-for-all, when requiring worship of His beloved Son.
Pros and Cons of the Inductive Approach
Prof. Hurtado advocates an inductive, aka bottom-up or data-driven, approach to research. This approach is commendable because it maintains a certain level of objectivity through its emphasis on evidence, and helps to eliminate theories with no evidential support. On the other hand, the data does not interpret itself, each researcher has to interpret the data using an interpretative framework which is necessarily subjective. It never ceases to amaze me how scholars have drawn vastly different, even opposite conclusions, from the same set of data.
The same action can signify different things when the motive and knowledge of the actor are taken into consideration. Similarly, we cannot rightly interpret devotional practices unless we have insight into the mind of the practitioner, his passion, his philosophy of life, and his theology, inarticulate and primitive though it may be. For this reason, I think Prof. Hurtado’s insistence upon separating theology from historical study is defective and misleading. A more holistic approach is sorely needed.
References:
Hurtado, Larry W. At the Origins of Christian Worship: the Context and Character of Earliest Christian Devotion. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2000.
Notes:
- ^1. Ironically, Christians were charged with atheism because of their refusal to worship pagan deities.
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As to your first question, I would say that the earliest Jewish christians, who offered in the temple, are atypical. At that moment christianity had not yet cristalized into a religion of its own and the role of Jesus, certainly more then just a messiah, was not yet clear. They continued to do what Jesus himself had done : offer in the temple. Once christianity stood on its feet (with Paul?) offerings were abolished and replaced with the one great offering of Christ (the divine lamb), which was then remembered in the liturgic service.
Dear Willy,
Thank you for responding to my questions. I hope you and your family have not been affected by COVID-19, though you probably didn’t visit Milan as planned due to the lockdown.
I find it interesting that Paul had no difficulty both offering sacrifices to God in the temple, and worshiping God and Christ in Christian gatherings. One would expect a Pharisee to do everything by the Book, but there was no book to follow regarding the worship of Jesus. If I were a first century Jewish believer, I imagine I would be very confused.
Deut.24.Isaiah 50.Jeremiah 3; God divorced Israel for adultery. And the new Covenant, left the old ones null and void. Jesus teaching the new birth is how Israel can be changed from an adulteress, to a new woman, an become a bride to Christ. And “God” is not His name, it is His Job description, His Name is Jesus!
Hi Nemo, One of the places we see a distinction between worship offered to God and worship offered to Jesus is in the parallel heaven-visions of Revelation 4 & 5. God is worshiped “for [he] created all things and by [his] will they existed and were created” (4:11). Jesus is worshiped because he was “slaughtered” to create a “kingdom and priests serving our God” (5:9-10).
I think one example of divine instructions for the worship of Jesus comes in Philippians 2. God “highly exalted” Jesus “so that at the name of Jesus… every tongue should confess Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”
Hi Alex (if I remember correctly?),
When I think of divine instructions for worship, what I have in mind is the detailed instructions on Tabernacle/Temple service in the Books of Moses and 1 Kings. There is nothing remotely similar to those in the New Testament, except perhaps the Lord’s Supper.
I understand that Prof. Hurtado has cited Phil. 2:9-11 as support for his thesis that God required the worship of Jesus. However, the context of Philippians 2 is not to address the issue of worship, instead it is an exhortation to imitate the humility of Christ. In Phil. 2:9-1, perhaps Paul is relating a vision of the exalted Jesus after his humiliation, and the universal worship he is worthy of receiving, and not necessarily re-iterating a command given by God to the believers to worship Jesus.