Larry W. Hurtado – författare

Silly,"" ""stupid,"" ""irrational,"" ""simple."" ""Wicked,"" ""hateful,"" ""obstinate,"" ""anti-social."" ""Extravagant,"" ""perverse."" The Roman world rendered harsh judgments upon early Christianity - including branding Christianity ""new."" Novelty was no Roman religious virtue.Nevertheless, as Larry W. Hurtado shows in Destroyer of the gods, Christianity thrived despite its new and distinctive features and opposition to them. Unlike nearly all other religious groups, Christianity utterly rejected the traditional gods of the Roman world. Christianity also offered a new and different kind of religious identity, one not based on ethnicity. Christianity was distinctively a ""bookish"" religion, with the production, copying, distribution, and reading of texts as central to its faith, even preferring a distinctive book-form, the codex. Christianity insisted that its adherents behave differently: unlike the simple ritual observances characteristic of the pagan religious environment, embracing Christian faith meant a behavioral transformation, with particular and novel ethical demands for men. Unquestionably, to the Roman world, Christianity was both new and different, and, to a good many, it threatened social and religious conventions of the day.In the rejection of the gods and in the centrality of texts, early Christianity obviously reflected commitments inherited from its Jewish origins. But these particular features were no longer identified with Jewish ethnicity and early Christianity quickly became aggressively trans-ethnic - a novel kind of religious movement. Its ethical teaching, too, bore some resemblance to the philosophers of the day, yet in contrast with these great teachers and their small circles of dedicated students, early Christianity laid its hard demands upon all adherents from the moment of conversion, producing a novel social project. Christianity's novelty was no badge of honor. Called atheists and suspected of political subversion, Christians earned Roman disdain and suspicion in equal amounts. Yet, as Destroyer of the gods demonstrates, in an irony of history the very features of early Christianity that rendered it distinctive and objectionable in Roman eyes have now become so commonplace in Western culture as to go unnoticed. Christianity helped destroy one world and create another.

This book is the first ever collection of scholarly essays in English devoted specifically to the theme of the expression 'son of man'. It describes the major competing theories which have addressed questions such as: What is the original Aramaic expression which lies behind the Greek phrase, and what was its original connotation? How do the gospel writers use the expression 'son of man'? Is it a Christological title, pregnant with meaning, much like the titles son of God, Christ/Messiah, and son of David? Is it used as a way of designating Jesus as a human being of unique redemptive significance? Or does it rather originate in a nuanced use (obscured in Greek translation) of an Aramaic expression used in place of the first person pronoun, as an indefinite pronoun, or for generic statements about human beings? Larry Hurtado and Paul Owen have brought together contributing scholars on the basis of their expertise in Aramaic, historical Jesus research, the son of man debate itself, and related fields of research.

This bookis the first ever collection of scholarly essays in English devoted specifically to the theme of the expression 'son of man'. Itdescribes the major competing theories which have addressed questions such as: What is the original Aramaic expression which lies behind the Greek phrase, and what was its original connotation? How do the gospel writers use the expression 'son of man'? Is it a Christological title, pregnant with meaning, much like the titles son of God, Christ/Messiah, and son of David? Is it used as a way of designating Jesus as a human being of unique redemptive significance? Or does it rather originate in a nuanced use (obscured in Greek translation) of an Aramaic expression used in place of the first person pronoun, as an indefinite pronoun, or for generic statements about human beings? Larry Hurtado and Paul Owen have brought together contributing scholars on the basis of theirexpertise in Aramaic, historical Jesus research, the son of man debate itself, and related fields of research.

This book is the first ever collection of scholarly essays in English devoted specifically to the theme of the expression ''son of man''. It describes the major competing theories which have addressed questions such as: What is the original Aramaic expression which lies behind the Greek phrase, and what was its original connotation? How do the gospel writers use the expression ''son of man''? Is it a Christological title, pregnant with meaning, much like the titles son of God, Christ/Messiah, and son of David? Is it used as a way of designating Jesus as a human being of unique redemptive significance? Or does it rather originate in a nuanced use (obscured in Greek translation) of an Aramaic expression used in place of the first person pronoun, as an indefinite pronoun, or for generic statements about human beings? Larry Hurtado and Paul Owen have brought together contributing scholars on the basis of their expertise in Aramaic, historical Jesus research, the son of man debate itself, and related fields of research.

Larry Hurtado''s One God, One Lord has been described as ''one of the most important and provocative Christologies of all time'' (Alan F. Segal). The book has taken its place among works on Jesus as one consistently cited, consistently read, and consistently examined in scholarly discourse. Hurtado examines the early cultic devotion to Jesus through a range of Jewish sources. Hurtado outlines an early ''high'' Christological theology, showing how the Christ of faith emerges from monotheistic Judaism. The book has already found a home on the shelves of many in its two previous editions. In this new Cornerstones edition Hurtado provides a substantial epilogue of some twenty-thousand words, which brings this ground-breaking work to the fore once more, in a format accessible to scholars and students alike.

Larry Hurtado's One God, One Lord has been described as 'one of the most important and provocative Christologies of all time' (Alan F. Segal). The book has taken its place among works on Jesus as one consistently cited, consistently read, and consistently examined in scholarly discourse. Hurtado examines the early cultic devotion to Jesus through a range of Jewish sources. Hurtado outlines an early 'high' Christological theology, showing how the Christ of faith emerges from monotheistic Judaism. The book has already found a home on the shelves of many in its two previous editions. In this new Cornerstones edition Hurtado provides a substantial epilogue of some twenty-thousand words, which brings this ground-breaking work to the fore once more, in a format accessible to scholars and students alike.

Larry Hurtado''s One God, One Lord has been described as ''one of the most important and provocative Christologies of all time'' (Alan F. Segal). The book has taken its place among works on Jesus as one consistently cited, consistently read, and consistently examined in scholarly discourse. Hurtado examines the early cultic devotion to Jesus through a range of Jewish sources. Hurtado outlines an early ''high'' Christological theology, showing how the Christ of faith emerges from monotheistic Judaism. The book has already found a home on the shelves of many in its two previous editions. In this new Cornerstones edition Hurtado provides a substantial epilogue of some twenty-thousand words, which brings this ground-breaking work to the fore once more, in a format accessible to scholars and students alike.

The essays included in this volume present Larry W. Hurtado''s steadfast analysis of the earliest Christian manuscripts. In these chapters, Hurtado considers not only standard text-critical issues which seek to uncover an earliest possible version of a text, but also the very manuscripts that are available to us. As one of the pre-eminent scholars of the field, Hurtado examines often overlooked 2nd and 3rd century artefacts, which are among the earliest manuscripts available, drawing fascinating conclusions about the features of early Christianity. Divided into two halves, the first part of the volume addresses text-critical and text-historical issues about the textual transmission of various New Testament writings. The second part looks at manuscripts as physical and visual artefacts themselves, exploring the metadata and sociology of their context and the nature of their first readers, for the light cast upon early Christianity. Whilst these essays are presented together here as a republished collection, Hurtado has made several updates across the collection to draw them together and to reflect on the developing nature of the issues that they address since they were first written.

The essays included in this volume present Larry W. Hurtado’s steadfast analysis of the earliest Christian manuscripts. In these chapters, Hurtado considers not only standard text-critical issues which seek to uncover an earliest possible version of a text, but also the very manuscripts that are available to us. As one of the pre-eminent scholars of the field, Hurtado examines often overlooked 2nd and 3rd century artefacts, which are among the earliest manuscripts available, drawing fascinating conclusions about the features of early Christianity. Divided into two halves, the first part of the volume addresses text-critical and text-historical issues about the textual transmission of various New Testament writings. The second part looks at manuscripts as physical and visual artefacts themselves, exploring the metadata and sociology of their context and the nature of their first readers, for the light cast upon early Christianity. Whilst these essays are presented together here as a republished collection, Hurtado has made several updates across the collection to draw them together and to reflect on the developing nature of the issues that they address since they were first written.

The essays included in this volume present Larry W. Hurtado’s steadfast analysis of the earliest Christian manuscripts. In these chapters, Hurtado considers not only standard text-critical issues which seek to uncover an earliest possible version of a text, but also the very manuscripts that are available to us. As one of the pre-eminent scholars of the field, Hurtado examines often overlooked 2nd and 3rd century artefacts, which are among the earliest manuscripts available, drawing fascinating conclusions about the features of early Christianity. Divided into two halves, the first part of the volume addresses text-critical and text-historical issues about the textual transmission of various New Testament writings. The second part looks at manuscripts as physical and visual artefacts themselves, exploring the metadata and sociology of their context and the nature of their first readers, for the light cast upon early Christianity. Whilst these essays are presented together here as a republished collection, Hurtado has made several updates across the collection to draw them together and to reflect on the developing nature of the issues that they address since they were first written.

This is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable. This monograph is a detailed examination of the textual characteristics and relationships of important early Greek manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark (chiefly Codex Washingtonianus [W], and also Family 13 and P45), and challenges the generally accepted view that these manuscripts are witnesses to an early stage of the Ceasarean text-type. The study begins with a discussion and critique of previous studies on the Caesarean text-type, showing the methodological weaknesses that demand a fresh analysis of the data and emphasizing the crucial importance of Codex W for the whole question of the textual history of Mark. Then a methodological approach is set forth, involving both careful quantitative measurement of manuscript agreements and detailed analysis of variants in the interest of determining both the textual relationships and textual character of manuscripts. When this more sophisticated approach is applied to the chief witnesses to the so-called "pre-Ceasarean" text of Mark, it is confirmed that W and P45 do show a significant relationship with each other and that Family 13 is a weaker member of the same group. However, the commonly held view that these witnesses reflect the early stage of the Caesarean text-type is shown to be erroneous. In addition to clarifying the textual relationships of the witnesses, the study defines more accurately their textual character, showing the scribal purposes reflected in the variants that characterize these manuscripts and adding considerably to our knowledge of the forces affecting the early transmission of the text of Mark. This is the first detailed examination of the Markan text of Codex W since the publication of the manuscript and the first published book-length study dealing with the Ceasarean text of Mark since the initial work of Kirsopp Lake and his colleagues Blake and New. This work not only addresses a major issue in the textual history of Mark, but offers methodological suggestions for the continuing investigation of the textual history of the New Testament.

In How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Larry Hurtado investigates the intense devotion to Jesus that emerged with surprising speed after his death. Reverence for Jesus among early Christians, notes Hurtado, included both grand claims about Jesus' significance and a pattern of devotional practices that effectively treated him as divine. This book argues that whatever one makes of such devotion to Jesus, the subject deserves serious historical consideration. Mapping out the lively current debate about Jesus, Hurtado explains the evidence, issues, and positions at stake. He goes on to treat the opposition to -- and severe costs of -- worshiping Jesus, the history of incorporating such devotion into Jewish monotheism, and the role of religious experience in Christianity's development out of Judaism. The follow-up to Hurtado's award-winningLord Jesus Christ (2003), this book provides compelling answers to queries about the development of the church's belief in the divinity of Jesus.

Much attention has been paid to the words of the earliest Christian canonical and extracanonical texts, yet Larry Hurtado points out that an even more telling story is being overlooked -- the story of the physical texts themselves. Widely recognized for his outstanding scholarship, Hurtado combines his comprehensive knowledge of Christian origins with an archivist's eye to make sense of these earliest objects of the faith. He introduces readers to the staurogram, possibly the first representation of the cross, the nomina sacra, a textual abbreviation system, and the puzzling Christian preference for book-like texts over scrolls. Drawing on studies by papyrologists and palaeographers as well as New Testament scholars -- and including photographic plates of selected manuscripts -- The Earliest Christian Artifacts astutely introduces the distinctive physical features of early Christian manuscripts, illustrating their relevance for wider inquiry into the complex origins of Christianity.

This outstanding book provides an in-depth historical study of the place of Jesus in the religious life, beliefs, and worship of Christians from the beginnings of the Christian movement down to the late second century.Lord Jesus Christ is a monumental work on earliest Christian devotion to Jesus, sure to replace Wilhelm Bousset's Kyrios Christos (1913) as the standard work on the subject. Larry Hurtado, widely respected for his previous contributions to the study of the New Testament and Christian origins, offers the best view to date of how the first Christians saw and reverenced Jesus as divine. In assembling this compelling picture, Hurtado draws on a wide body of ancient sources, from Scripture and the writings of such figures as Ignatius of Antioch and Justin to apocryphal texts such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Truth. Hurtado considers such themes as early beliefs about Jesus' divine status and significance, but he also explores telling devotional practices of the time, including prayer and worship, the use of Jesus' name in exorcism, baptism and healing, ritual invocation of Jesus as "Lord," martyrdom, and lesser-known phenomena such as prayer postures and the curious scribal practice known today as the nomina sacra. The revealing portrait that emerges from Hurtado's comprehensive study yields definitive answers to questions like these: How important was this formative period to later Christian tradition? When did the divinization of Jesus first occur? Was early Christianity influenced by neighboring religions? How did the idea of Jesus' divinity change old views of God? And why did the powerful dynamics of early beliefs and practices encourage people to make the costly move of becoming a Christian? Boasting an unprecedented breadth and depth of coverage - the book speaks authoritatively on everything from early Christian history to themes in biblical studies to New Testament Christology — Hurtado's Lord Jesus Christ is at once significant enough that a wide range of scholars will want to read it and accessible enough that general readers interested at all in Christian origins will also profit greatly from it.

A fresh scholarly look at the apostle Peter and his significance in the early church and beyond   Long overshadowed by the apostle Paul, Peter has received increased scholarly attention of late. Building on that resurgence of interest, nineteen internationally prominent scholars of early Christian history examine and reassess the historical Peter and his significance, offering a comprehensive view of Peter through analysis both of New Testament texts and of noncanonical literature.     CONTRIBUTORS Sean A. Adams Timothy D. Barnes Markus Bockmuehl Helen K. Bond Finn Damgaard Paul Foster Seán Freyne Paul A. Hartog Larry W. Hurtado Peter Lampe Jonathan W. Lo John R. Markley Tobias Nicklas Matthew V. Novenson Paul Parvis William Rutherford Todd D. Still Jason S. Sturdevant Margaret H. Williams

The Understanding the Bible Commentary Series helps readers navigate the strange and sometimes intimidating literary terrain of the Bible. These accessible volumes break down the barriers between the ancient and modern worlds so that the power and meaning of the biblical texts become transparent to contemporary readers. The contributors tackle the task of interpretation using the full range of critical methodologies and practices, yet they do so as people of faith who hold the text in the highest regard. Pastors, teachers, and lay people alike will cherish the truth found in this commentary series.