Selected Essays on Jesus-Devotion
I’m pleased to have author’s copies of a volume of selected essays of mine: Ancient Jewish Monotheism and Early Christian Jesus-Devotion: The Context and Character of Christological Faith (Baylor University Press, 2017), the publisher’s online catalog entry here.
The 32 essays range in date from 1979 to 2017, originally published in various journals and multi-author volumes. They’re grouped by broad approach and focus, however, not by date.
Part I: The Scholarly Context, includes essays on christological work of Bousset and Cullmann, N.T. Wright and Richard Bauckham.
Part II: The Ancient Jewish Context, has essays on ancient Jewish “monotheism,” on the various “principal angels” and other such figures in ancient Jewish texts, and on early Jewish opposition to Jesus-devotion.
Part III: Explanations, has essays on the “forces and factors” that I propose help us to account historically for the eruption and shape of early Jesus-devotion, and on the role of “revelatory” religious experiences in particular.
Part IV: Expressions (the largest portion), comprises 19 essays devoted to specific texts and phenomena reflective of early Jesus-devotion. These include Philippians 2:6-11, Jesus’ death as “paradigmatic” in the NT, homage given to the “historical” Jesus, the meaning of “the son of man” expression in the Gospels, Jesus’ divine sonship, discipleship in GMark, the remarkable scene in Revelation 4–5, christology in Acts, Paul’s christology, early Christian appropriation of Psalms, Jesus and Jesus’ name in Justin Martyr, Jesus’ place in early Christian prayer, the social and political consequences of Jesus-devotion, and some other topics as well.
I’m grateful to Baylor University Press for prompting me to put the collection together, and for all their work in converting the various essays to a pleasing book format. As well, I’m glad that it’s got an affordable price, $39.95 (not bad for a book of nearly 700 pages).
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Larry Hurtado's Blog 
Thank you for all the work that you continue to do, Larry. In Part IV of your work, you discuss the social and political of Jesus devotion. Based on my reading of your previous work (“Pre-70 CE Jewish Opposition to Christ-Devotion), you seem to have focused on Jewish political opposition. Do you also see elements of anti-Roman empire language in Phil 2:6-11? Do you think Phil 2:6-11 equally engages both Jewish and Roman Empire opposition? Thank you for your thoughts.
In discussing the “social and political costs of devotion to Jesus” I focus both on intra-communal opposition (from fellow Jews) and the problems of converted “pagans” from their society and from the political authorities. As for Philippians 2:6-11, I see no overt anti-Roman language, but I suppose that one can see or impute an implicit contrast with the Emperor.
Bravo Larry! I am sure this collection will stand the test of time regarding Jesus-Devotion, especially in the larger context of Judaisms and their Messiahs at the turn of the Christian era. I look forward to reading it some day!
Congratulations Larry! I’m buying this today; it will be nice to have all of these essays in one easy spot to access.