One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism

This groundbreaking monograph examines how early Christians incorporated devotion to Jesus within their inherited Jewish monotheistic framework, challenging conventional assumptions about the development of Christian worship. Hurtado investigates the apparent paradox of how a movement emerging from Judaism's strict monotheism could accord divine honors to Jesus while maintaining allegiance to one God.

The work's central thesis contends that early Christian devotion to Jesus represents not a departure from Jewish monotheism but rather a distinctive "mutation" within it. Hurtado employs the concept of "binitarian devotion" to describe how Christians worshipped Jesus alongside God while preserving monotheistic integrity. Through meticulous analysis of Jewish texts from the Second Temple period, he demonstrates that Judaism already possessed conceptual resources for distinguishing between God and exalted intermediary figures such as principal angels, personified divine attributes like Wisdom, and patriarchs like Enoch.

Hurtado's methodology combines history of religions approaches with close textual analysis of early Christian worship practices, prayers, hymns, and ritual formulas. He argues that the crucial innovation lies not in speculation about Christ's nature but in the actual cultic veneration offered to Jesus. This devotional practice, evident from the earliest Christian sources, preceded and drove later theological reflection rather than resulting from it.

The monograph directly challenges the influential theory that high Christology developed gradually through Hellenistic influence on an originally Jewish movement. Against scholars who posit a slow evolutionary process, Hurtado marshals evidence that devotion to Jesus as a divine figure emerged remarkably early within Palestinian Jewish-Christian circles. He demonstrates that this development occurred through creative adaptation of Jewish categories rather than through pagan contamination.

The work's significance extends beyond historical reconstruction to contemporary theological debates about divine identity and religious exclusivism. By showing how early Christians maintained monotheistic commitment while venerating Christ, Hurtado provides crucial data for understanding the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. His analysis illuminates how religious communities negotiate between conservative tradition and innovative experience, offering insights relevant to interreligious dialogue and theological method. The monograph has substantially influenced subsequent scholarship on Christian origins, establishing the importance of worship practices for understanding theological development and challenging linear models of religious evolution.