Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity

This magisterial study examines the emergence and development of devotion to Jesus in the first two centuries of Christianity, arguing that the worship of Jesus as divine represents a remarkable and unprecedented phenomenon within the context of Jewish monotheism. Hurtado demonstrates that treating Jesus as an object of religious devotion—including prayer, hymns, and ritual invocation—began extraordinarily early, within the first decades after Jesus's death, and constituted a distinctive "mutation" within Second Temple Jewish religious practice.

The work systematically analyzes the evidence for what Hurtado terms "binitarian" worship patterns in earliest Christianity, where Jesus is incorporated into the devotional life previously reserved for the God of Israel alone. Drawing on a comprehensive range of sources including Pauline epistles, Gospel traditions, liturgical materials, and archaeological evidence, Hurtado traces how various Christian communities expressed and justified this devotion while maintaining their commitment to monotheism. He examines six key features of early Christian worship that included Jesus: prayer through and to Jesus, invocation and confession of Jesus, baptism in Jesus's name, the Lord's Supper, hymns about and to Jesus, and prophecy as the voice of the risen Jesus.

Hurtado's methodological approach combines history of religions comparison with careful attention to the Jewish matrix of early Christianity. Against scholars who attribute high Christology to later Hellenistic influence or gradual evolutionary development, he argues that the evidence points to an early, sudden, and widespread emergence of Jesus-devotion that requires explanation. He proposes that early Christians' religious experiences, particularly visions and revelations, played a crucial role in legitimating this innovation within their monotheistic framework.

The study engages critically with alternative explanations, particularly those that minimize the significance or dating of early Jesus-devotion. Hurtado challenges both the older religionsgeschichtliche school's emphasis on pagan parallels and more recent attempts to explain high Christology as a late development. His work has profoundly influenced subsequent scholarship on Christian origins, establishing the centrality of worship practices for understanding early Christian beliefs about Jesus's divine status. While not directly addressing philosophical arguments for God's existence, the work provides essential historical context for understanding how the Christian conception of God as including Jesus emerged and developed, thereby contributing to broader discussions about the nature and knowability of the divine in Western religious thought.