One of the clarifying/correcting points I’ve repeatedly made in recent years about Bousset’s work is that he actually supported a very early and explosively quick emergence of the worship of Jesus (in his terms, the “Kyrios-cult”).   The crucial evidence he correctly cited is the letters of Paul, which show that he took for granted the treatment of the risen Jesus as rightful co-recipient of Christian worship.  Paul doesn’t spend any time explaining or advocating Jesus-devotion; he presumes that his readers already practice it.

So, as Bousset further judged, this level of Jesus-devotion must have characterized the form of early Christian circles into which Paul was introduced after what he described as a divine revelation that re-oriented him dramatically from opponent to adherent and proponent of Jesus and early Christian faith.  In chronological terms, this means that this “Kyrios-cult” must have “erupted” (Bousset’s term) within the very first months or few years at most, for Paul’s “conversion” is by wide agreement dated within 1-3 years after Jesus’ execution.

Although Bousset stoutly insisted that this level of Jesus-devotion was not practiced in the “Primitive Palestinian Community” (e.g., the Jerusalem church), he fully granted that it erupted early and suddenly, and rightly observed that Paul was by no means the inventor of it.  So, in contrast to some other scholars (e.g., my ocassional sparring partners Professor Dunn and Professor Casey), Bousset was a proponent of an “early high christology” view. 

In an article published over 30 years ago, I laid out several major problems in Bousset’s work:  Larry W. Hurtado, “New Testament Christology: A Critique of Bousset’s Influence,” Theological Studies 40 (1979): 306-17.   I contended (and maintain) that these problems required a full and fresh attempt to address the history-of-religions questions about Jesus-devotion.   In my 2003 book, Lord Jesus Christ:  Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Eerdmans), I have offered my own attempt to do so. 

On the issue in focus here, I think he erred in distinguishing so sharply in this matter between his “Primitive Palestinian Community” and his “Gentile Christian Primitive Community” (for reasons, see my article and other publications).  Especially in Lord Jesus Christ, I’ve given reasons for judging that the Jesus-devotion reflected in Paul’s letters was likely shared by Jewish believers in Roman Palestine as well as Paul’s converts in various cities. 

But, though Bousset is now subject to valid criticism on a number of crucial matters, he can’t be rightly portrayed as aligned with those who allege an incremental growth toward the worship of Jesus across several decades or more.  On at least the question of whether this “high” level of Jesus-devotion arose early and suddenly or late and incrementally, Bousset was emphatically of the view that it appeared early and explosively quickly.

Zetzel emphasizes that the copies of ancient literary works from which extant copies descend to us were likely those copied for readers who could afford to have them made, and that these readers were more often not scholars but simply interested individuals who wanted their own copies of the works.  He also judges that, in the main, intentional changes in texts were more likely made by readers, rather than by copyists, which means that in understanding how texts got altered in antiquity, we need to give more attention to the readers and their situations.   Quoting Zetzel (238-29), “In general, there is no escaping the disturbing fact that, in antiquity, the preservation and the quality of a text were the result of the interests of its successive owners or readers, not of a scholarly editor. Whether or not we have a careful or a sloppy text, an interpolated version or an accurate representation of the author’s original work, depends entirely on the individuals whose copies have survived.”

I also found it striking that Zetzel distinguishes somewhat sharply between the fortunes of ancient texts that were treated as school texts and those that were not.   Texts used in schools were much more frequently and widely read/studied and copied, and so “were the most protected texts” (239), which made it much more difficult for lines of such a text to be omitted or added without it being detected.  So, for example, because Virgil was so widely used in schools from 19 BC onward, ” . . . the text is better preserved and more protected than that of any other ancient author” (247), although not immune to variants.

In an essay published in 2006 (“The New Testament in the Second Century:  Text, Collections and Canon”), I contended that the frequent use of NT writings in early Christian circles (especially worship gatherings) had a somewhat similar effect, making it more difficult to change the texts markedly.  (I’ve given the pre-publication version of the essay, and full facts on the published version on the “Essays, etc” page of this site, in the bullet-point “NT in the Second Century”.)   So I find some confirmation of my argument in Zetzel’s that those pagan texts more often/widely used in schools were likewise more “protected”.

Here’s a final quotation from Zetzel (254) that I offer as one line of further research and reflection, perhaps especially by newer/younger scholars in NT studies:  “Before we can even estimate the accuracy of our manuscripts, we must know the circumstances in which the text was read, and we must reconstruct, as far as possible, not the stemma of the text but the history of the influences that have acted upon the books from which our copies descend. It is not possible to do this in all cases, or even in many; but until it is attempted our understanding of both the ancient texts and their readers will be inaccurate.”

Hays is well know in NT circles for major contributions, in several of them showing his dexterity in probing for “inter-textual” connections between NT and OT passages.  Perhaps most relevant to these Gunning lectures is his book, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).

The daring line that Hays takes in these Gunning Lectures is to engage sympathetically the ways in which the Gospels writers show the concern to link Jesus with the OT.  As Hays shows, these include much more than explicit citation of proof-texts, extending to “allusions” and other more subtle instances where the authors seem to reflect a treatment of the OT as entirely suitable as a reservoir of “types” and foreshadowings, and a vocabulary or palette from which to draw material with which to indicate Jesus’ significance.

I look forward to the remaining three lectures, and to seeing their finished form in publication.

I’ve now pretty much moved over to these fonts, having used them in several essays written during 2011.  But I have to say that one complication is getting used to the keyboard.  With the old SP fonts, I found the keyboard fairly intuitive.  But for the new unicode fonts, I have to keep to hand printed sheets reminding me how to get accents and breathing marks in Greek.  And I find the Hebrew keyboard even more difficult to figure out.

The Greek keyboard I chose is this one:  http://www.jcu.edu/language/llc/keyboard-setup-greek.htm.

For Hebrew, I downloaded the “SIL” keyboard, link here:  http://www.sbl-site.org/educational/BiblicalFonts_SBLHebrew.aspx

If others have any advice, tricks, simplications, let the rest of us know!

John Paul Heil, The Letters of Paul as Rituals of Worship (Eugene, OR:  Cascade Books, 2011).

Heil’s starting point is the valid observation that Paul’s letters were originally addressed to, and intended to be read as part of the gatherings of, small churches of the early decades of the Christian movement.  Heil works through the Pauline Corpus, epistle by epistle, highlighting features that reflect early Christian worship, and/or that comprise what he calls actions of “epistolary worship”.  The latter include such things as Paul’s prayer-statements, benedictions, doxologies, etc.  I’ll have more to say in the formal review, so here I simply draw attention to the book as a helpful study. 

Paul’s letters have been studied for their theological content, for what they reflect about the social composition of early churches, for their formal and rhetorical features, and for other purposes.  But, whatever else may be said about them, Paul’s letters were expressive of the religious faith and practice of early churches, and were intended to form part of the corporate worship gatherings of the churches to which they were addressed.

I’ve just uploaded in PDF format the pre-publication versions of a couple of my published articles from an excellent multi-volume reference work:  The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, edited by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld (Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 2006-2009).   (Click on the “Essays, etc.” tab to see these and other uploaded items.) 

One of them is my piece, “Worship, NT Christian,” in which I attempt a wide-ranging overview of the matter.  I think that this essay could serve well as an introduction to the subject for those curious about it.

The other uploaded PDF is my other big article in the NIDB, “Christology,” in which I give an overview/introduction to the christological beliefs and related practices that we have reflected in the NT.

Atlas of the Early Christian World, by F. van der Meer and Christine Mohrmann, trans. Mary F. Hedlund and H. H. Rowley (London/Edinburgh:  Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1958).

It is quite simply an incomparable work (to my knowledge).  The most important and the unique material is the maps, 40 of them, plus the large maps on the inside covers.  The unique feature of these maps is that they show the locations of churches and other important matters.  Map 1, for example gives the locations of all churches of the first century referred to in ancient sources.  As well, this particular map gives known Christian writings of this period, and their putative provenances.  Map 2 is a color-coded display of the spread of Christianity by 300 CE, the various colors showing the estimated density of Christians in various areas of the Roman Empire.  Map 4 shows the location of churches founded before the persecution by Diocletian (304 CE), Map 5 shows churches in the 2nd century, Map 7 churches in the 3rd century, and so on down through to ca. 600 CE.  Map 15b shows early Christian monuments between Antioch and Beroea, Map 18 churches of the ancient Diocese of Egypt.  And so on.

In addition to the maps, there are 150 pp. devoted to photos of a raft of ancient artifacts pertaining to early Christianity and its world with impressively detailed notes for each one.  And the large format (the book is ca. 26 x 35 cm) means that the maps are easy to consult.

Used copies are available for what seems a relatively reasonable price.  It’s too bad, however, that the volume was allowed to go out of print.

In 2011, there were ca. 130,000 views on this site, making over 196,000 since its launch in July 2010.  The traffic flow fluctuates, largely based on how wide an interest there is in the posts.  The busiest day was in March 2011, with 10,000 views in response to a posting on those Lead Codices that UK newspapers were hailing as perhaps the most important archaeological discovery of the past century.  My posting was one of a number that pointed out the flaws in the claims and that (rightly) judged the items as bogus.

Impossible for me to predict what matters will generate postings or views in 2012.  I’ll simply try to develop the site as a venue for reliable information on the New Testament and the origins of Christianity, making the information accessible to anyone interested.

I don’t use the site to make money (though some others do), and so don’t have cozy links with various firms that have approached me to do so.  It’s just a site for those who are interested in the subject.

All the best for 2012!

http://www.editionsducerf.fr/html/fiche/fichelivre.asp?n_liv_cerf=9364

As there are in fact few books on “God” in the oceanic volume of studies of the New Testament, I intend my book to draw attention to what the great NT scholar Nils Dahl referred to as “a neglected factor in New Testament theology.”  As I try to show, in fact the exalted christological claims of the NT all have a profoundly theo-centric grounding.

Best wishes to all blog-readers for the Christmas season and for 2012.

Brent Nongbri’s article, “Grenfell and Hunt on the Dates of Early Christian Codices” (pp. 149-62), reviews scholarly discussion of the datings of early manuscripts assigned by the two great figures associated with the phenomenal papyri discoveries in Oxyrhynchus in the closing years of the 19th and early years of the 20th centuries.  Nongbri’s study alleges (with some apparent justification) that C.H. Roberts wrongly accused Grenfell and Hunt of dating Christian codices late because they didn’t allow for the codex to have been appropriated by Christians as early as it now seems happened.  But Nongbri also illustrates how complex the process is in dating “undated” manuscripts (i.e., solely on the basis of circumstantial factors and the handwriting).  Any of us interested in the careful use of early Christian manuscripts will read Nongbri’s article with great interest.

My only criticism has to do with one small section of the article, in which Nongbri complains that “Among some biblical scholars, Roberts’ claims have been taken to great lengths,” then citing works by Philip W. Comfort and David P. Barrett, and by Carsten Thiede.  But Thiede wasn’t a “biblical scholar” (he was a zealous amateur, impressively successful commercially), and Comfort and Barrett are seen among any biblical scholars acquainted at all with the data as somewhat extreme in their early dating of manuscripts.  I would have felt less aggrieved had Nongbri avoided the impression that these writers are representative in any way of “biblical scholars” in their views.  (I have the same complaint against the way the matter is handled by Roger Bagnall, Early Christian Books in Egypt [Princeton University Press, 2009], who goes even farther, treating Thiede’s eccentric views as if they were representative of “biblical scholars”.

But, this complaint aside, Nongbri’s article is well worth the reading, and his cautionary advice about dating early manuscripts is well taken.