Apologia Report 16:21 (1,071)
June 15, 2011

CHRISTOLOGY
Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? The New Testament Evidence,
by James D. G. Dunn [1] — reviewer T. Scott Manor notes that “Dunn
specifies the main thesis that runs throughout his work: ‘worship of
Jesus is only possible or acceptable within what is now understood to
be a Trinitarian framework.'”

Dunn’s analysis includes “particular attention paid to the
previous and notable contributions of Professors Larry Hurtado and
Richard Bauckham, to whom this book is dedicated. …
“While the contributions of Hurtado and Baucknam have paved the
way in this discussion, Dunn is concerned that there is lacking an
appreciation for the ‘whole picture,’ which includes textual
evidence that may prove inconvenient for some of their conclusions.
…
“Dunn’s ambivalence as to whether Christ was an object of early
Christian worship is in clear view here [chapter two]. But his
analysis, while cogent and thoughtful, is remarkably brief. It is
also surprising that the clearest examples of hymns sung explicitly
to Christ (Rev. 4:11, 5:12-13) are considered only after Dunn has
drawn his conclusions. [Dunn] brackets off the evidence from John’s
Apocalypse as ‘unique’ because ‘its affirmation of the deity of
Christ is unqualified.'”

Regarding “instances [which] represent clear acts of worship of
Jesus himself, Dunn does not pay much attention to them in his
analysis beyond the lexical value of the word ‘worship’ in Chapter
one. [T]he weight of Dunn’s inquiry appears to have shifted unevenly
to all but exclude clear instances of Jesus-worship that should be
given a stronger hearing. …

“Dunn cautions against Christian worship that is defined too
narrowly as *only* worship of Christ, what Dunn calls
‘Jesus-olatry.’ Within this context he frames the answer to his
book: ‘No, by and large the first Christians did not worship Jesus
as such.’ Dunn’s view provides an important point and a valuable
warning, but the question remains whether such a line should
necessarily be drawn between worship of Jesus as distinct from God,
or whether Hurtado’s ‘binitarian’ shape of early Christian worship
and Bauckham’s conception of Jesus as part of the ‘divine identity’
may still hold due weight.” Expository Times, 122:8 – 2011,
pp386-388. [3]

The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in its Jewish Context,
by James F. McGrath [2] — especially interesting because the
reviewer is Larry Hurtado, who explains: “The stated main concern in
this book is when and how Jews and Christians became ‘divided over
the understanding of God’s oneness.’ McGrath aims to show that this
happened ‘significantly later’ than the NT texts, sometime and after
the second century CE. So, throughout the book he argues that the
Christian beliefs and practices reflected in NT texts ‘appear to fit
nicely within the bounds of Jewish monotheism,’ in which
particularly various principal-agent figures featured along with
God. …
“Some of McGrath’s exegetical judgements seem to me forced, e.g.,
his proposal that Colossians 1:15-20 is ‘simply a poetical way of
saying that God’s Wisdom is found in Jesus, and that the references
to Jesus as the agent of creation here may only mean ‘that Jesus is
the one through whom God’s new creation takes place.’ …
“J.D.G. Dunn and Maurice Casey (for quite different reasons) have
argued that in the Gospel of John we first see a fully divine Jesus,
and so a significant modification of Jewish beliefs about God,
McGrath firmly insists (debatably, in my view), ‘John would not have
been regarded by his Jewish contemporaries as haven taken “a step
too far” beyond the founds of what was acceptable’ within Jewish
monotheism of the time. In McGrath’s view, the only controversial
matter about Jesus-devotion was the messianic claim. He does not
address, however, the lack of evidence that a messianic claim would
be judged as blasphemous, and his handling of the charge of
blasphemy against Jesus in John 10:33 because he makes himself God/a
god will not persuade many I suspect.”
McGrath “grants that in Rev. 5:8-14 worship ‘*includes* the
Lamb,’ and that in 7:9-17 as well worship is ‘offered to God and the
Lamb,’ but McGrath insists that ‘God is always either the sole or
primary recipient of the worship that is offered.’ …
“For McGrath, the particular relevance appears to be that the
doctrine of the Trinity should not be regarded as binding or
essential today. …
“McGrath’s inquiry whether the NT shows Jews and Christians
parting company over their respective doctrines of God seems to me a
bit strangely conceived. Essentially, he looks for indications in
the NT that earliest Christians saw themselves as departing from the
monotheistic stance of their Jewish religious matrix. Finding none,
he argues that there was nothing terribly unusual in their
Jesus-devotion.” Hurtado finds “several problems with this
reasoning. …
“Repeatedly, McGrath also asserts that the absence in Paul’s
letters of any defence of his Jesus-devotion shows that it was not
controversial *for Jews* outside Christian circles. But this
argument rests on the dubious assumption that Paul would have used
his letters to defend the Christian gospel against Jewish critique.
…
“McGrath contends that Jesus became ‘fully divine’ and the
‘parting of the ways’ between Jews and Christianity over their
beliefs about God happened only in the second century and
thereafter, and he ascribes all this to the emerging doctrine of
divine creation ‘*ex nihilo.*'”
McGrath’s observations “are not really the point under debate,
which is, instead, the full nature of early Jesus-devotion. Over
some twenty years I have repeatedly specified the constellation of
ways in which Jesus functioned programmatically in earliest
Christian devotional practice, contending that in that historical
setting these collectively comprise a novel and highly significant
development that I have labeled a ‘binitarian’ devotional pattern. I
mean that in the NT the worship of God is expressed and conducted
typically with reference to Jesus. McGrath does not really engage
these specific phenomena, however, which makes his attempt to
challenge my view both unpersuasive and somewhat frustrating.”
McGrath “reasons that the absence of reference to sacrifice
offered to Jesus in the NT means that he really was not worshipped.
But, of course, literal sacrifices did not feature at all in early
Christian worship gatherings, so on McGrath’s argument one would
have to conclude that early Christians did not worship God either!”
Expository Times, 122:8 – 2011, pp383-386. [3]

——-

SOURCES: Monographs

1 – Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? The New Testament
Evidence, by James D. G. Dunn (W John Knox, 2010, paperback, 176
pages) <www.j.mp/gQSryk>

2 – The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in its Jewish
Context, by James F. McGrath (Univ of Ill Prs, 2009, hardcover, 168
pages) <www.j.mp/lPlt6K>

——–

SOURCES: Periodicals

3 – Expository Times, <www.j.mp/hRKaoy>

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—- End, Apologia Report 16:21 —-

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