Larry Hurtado has posted on his blog a
bit about what is the central focus of his work:
... the emergence of
“Jesus-devotion” in earliest Christianity, and in discussions with the class
and with others over recent years, Wilhelm Bousset’s classic work, Kyrios
Christos (ET, Nashville: Abingdon, 1970;
German 1913, 1921) naturally comes up.
One of the clarifying/correcting
points I’ve repeatedly made in recent years about Bousset’s work is that he
actually supported a very early and explosively quick emergence of the worship
of Jesus (in his terms, the “Kyrios-cult”).
The crucial evidence he correctly cited is the letters of Paul, which
show that he took for granted the treatment of the risen Jesus as rightful
co-recipient of Christian worship. Paul
doesn’t spend any time explaining or advocating Jesus-devotion; he presumes
that his readers already practice it.
So, as Bousset further judged, this
level of Jesus-devotion must have characterized the form of early Christian
circles into which Paul was introduced after what he described as a divine
revelation that re-oriented him dramatically from opponent to adherent and
proponent of Jesus and early Christian faith.
In chronological terms, this means that this “Kyrios-cult” must have
“erupted” (Bousset’s term) within the very first months or few years at most,
for Paul’s “conversion” is by wide agreement dated within 1-3 years after
Jesus’ execution…
Especially in [my 2003 book, Lord
Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in
Earliest Christianity (Eerdmans)], I’ve given reasons
for judging that the Jesus-devotion reflected in Paul’s letters was likely
shared by Jewish believers in Roman Palestine as well as Paul’s converts in
various cities.
On … the question of whether this
“high” level of Jesus-devotion arose early and suddenly or late and
incrementally, Bousset was emphatically of the view that it appeared early and
explosively quickly.
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