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Abstract
Keywords
apologetics, early Christian worship, faith and reason, evidence, Larry
Hurtado, Richard Bauckham, N.T. Wright, Gerald OCollins
The newest quest for the historical Jesus has ushered in a strong wave
of apologetic writings defending the historicity of Jesus resurrection.
The main evidence considered usually consists of the post-mortem
appearances, the empty tomb, and the origin of the earliest disciples
belief in Jesus resurrection. For the most part, skeptics of Christianity
have taken these reported facts seriously and try to account for them
in purely naturalistic terms.1
Another salient component of earliest Christianity is the churchs
worship and devotional life. This phenomenon has been outlined
and explained by brilliant scholars such as Larry Hurtado, Richard
Bauckham, and James Dunn. And yet, most apologists in the newest
1
James Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit, (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), p. 97.
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2 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection
quest have neglected to interact with the pioneering work being re-
searched in this area. What is equally surprising is the general silence
of Hurtado and his collaborators to spell out the apologetic potential
of their own published works.2 I submit that earliest Christian wor-
ship and devotion should be used by apologists to lend additional
credibility to Jesus resurrection. Scholars working in early Christian
worship rarely mention the antecedent causes that were responsible
for bringing these practices into being, and their work has profound
implications for historical apologetics.
This essay will outline the apologetic work of N.T. Wright,
Gerald OCollins, Gary Habermas, William Lane Craig, and Richard
Swinburne. These scholars have not seriously entertained the most
noteworthy features of liturgical worship as evidence for the resur-
rection. On a more positive note, I will explain how early Christian
worship should be utilized by them.
2
Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), p. 28, 29.
3
I Howard Marshall, I Believe in the Historical Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1977), p. 83.
4
N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2003).
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Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection 3
history (as in the case of Jesus); (3) none of the risen would play a
role in the divine judgment (according to the Christians, however, the
Risen One was the judge of all humankind); (4) the Messiah would
not die, much less rise from the dead. Nor did they think that (5)
God, or YHWH, would be raised from the dead in human form (cf.
2 Clement 1:1).
Conversely, the first Christians proclaimed very specific things
about Christs resurrection which was absent in Second Temple
Judaism. The Christians: (1) believed in a resurrected and crucified
rabbi, which was seen by Jews as a curse from God (cf. Deut 21:23);
(2) they claimed that the general resurrection had somehow already
begun (1 Cor. 15:2023); (3) they unanimously placed the resurrec-
tion at the center of their message, excluding all other views of the
afterlife (unlike the Jews, whose resurrection doctrine was periph-
eral and even debatable among other eschatological beliefs); (4) they
argued that the resurrected body was incorruptible and imperish-
able (unlike the Jews, who never commented on the nature of the
risen body); (5) they spoke of Gods Kingdom as having comeand
still having to comea very nuanced position to be in; (6) and they
propagated the good news to all people, regardless of race, gender, or
social statussomething the Jews did not feel the need to do, either
before or during the rise of Christianity. All of these modifications
prompt Wright to ask: what could have caused these modifications?
Wright therefore starts from the fact of the earliest disciples belief
in the Risen Jesus. He then argues for the historicity of the empty
tomb and post-mortem appearances on the basis of this first fact.5
The evidence, in his words, may be in the same sort of category, of
historical probability so high as to be virtually certain, as the death
of Augustus in AD 14 or the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. For him
the evidence is as watertight as one is likely to find.6 Throughout
his writing career, Wright has held that Jesus resurrection is also
the best explanation of the reported facts.7 Because of the influ-
ence of dialectical and existential theology, many theologians explain
the resurrection in mere eschatological terms. But Wright has again
reminded us of the physical nature of the resurrection body.8 This
5
For a thorough analysis of Wrights argument, see William Lane Craig, Wright and
Crossan on the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus, in Robert B. Stewart, (ed), The
Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright in Dialogue (Minneapolis,
MN: Fortress, 2006), pp. 139148.
6
Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, p. 710, cf. 707.
7
Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, pp. 716, 717. See also N.T. Wright and
Marcus J. Borg, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (New York: Harper Collins, 1999),
p. 124.
8
Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, pp. 477478.
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4 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection
9
Pinchas Lapide, The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective, trans. Wilhelm C.
Linss (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1982; reprint, Eugene, OR, Wipf and Stock, 2002),
pp. 130, 131. I cannot rid myself of the impression that some modern theologians are
ashamed of the material facticity of the resurrection. Their varying attempts at dehis-
toricizing the Easter experience which give the lie to all four evangelists are simply not
understandable to me in any other way. Indeed, the four authors of the Gospels definitely
compete with one another in illustrating the tangible, substantial dimension of this resur-
rection explicitly. Often it seems as if renowned New Testament scholars in our days want
to insert a kind of ideological or dogmatic curtain between the pre-Easter and the risen
Jesus to protest the latter against any kind of contamination by earthly three-dimensionality.
However, for the first Christians who thought, believed, and hoped in a Jewish manner,
the immediate historicity was not only a part of that happening but the indispensable
precondition for the recognition of its significance for salvation. For all these Christians
who believe in the incarnation (something I am unable to do) but have difficulty with the
historically understood resurrection, the word of Jesus of the blind guides, straining out
a gnat and swallowing a camel (Matt. 23:24) probably applies.
10
Larry W. Hurtado, Jesus Resurrection in the Early Christian Texts: An Engagement
with N.T. Wright, Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 3.2 (2005), p. 205.
11
Gerald OCollins, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Valley Forge, PA: Judson, 1973),
pp. 6376.
12
Avery Dulles, The Survival of Dogma, (New York: Doubleday, 1971), pp. 41, 42,
6075, 202: I do not propose an apologetics of hope as self-sufficient, still less as a
substitute for all other forms of apologetics. To show the full credibility of the Christian
message it is necessary, today as always, to appeal to the data of history. The story of Jesus
of Nazareth cannot be by-passed, for Jesus himself is the most striking sign of the truth
of his own message. The Resurrection of Jesus stands as the most powerful expression
of Gods omnipotent redemptive love. But the Resurrection remains largely inaccessible
to the historian, if he follows the conventional methods of scientific research. He has no
way of dealing with such a unique phenomenon, in which the barriers between time and
eternity dissolve and the end of all history is anticipated. To accept the reality of this event
one must already be, or at least one must be disposed to become, a man of transcendental
hope. . .. Thus the apologetics of history, as it deals with the Resurrection, interlocks with
the apologetics of hope. What one makes of the narratives depends in great part on how
one answers the question: What may I hope for?
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Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection 5
13
Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, trans. J.R. Foster (San Francisco:
Ignatius, 1990), pp. 234, 235.
14
Gerald OCollins, Easter Faith: Believing in the Risen Jesus (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist,
2003), p. 32, cf. 33.
15
Ibid., 40.
16
Gerald OCollins, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus
(Oxford: Oxford University, 1995), p. 51.
17
Gerald OCollins, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Some Contemporary Issues
(Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1993), pp. 211.
18
Gerald OCollins, Jesus Risen: An Historical, Fundamental and Systematic Exami-
nation of Christs Resurrection (New York: Paulist, 1987), p. 108.
19
Gerald OCollins, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Some Contemporary Issues,
pp. 16, 18.
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6 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection
20
Gerald OCollins, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Valley Forge, PA: Judson, 1973),
pp. 70, 71.
21
Cf. Gerald OCollins, Retrieving Fundamental Theology: Three Styles of Contempo-
rary Theology (New York: Paulist, 1993), pp. 8797.
22
For representative texts, see The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of
Christ (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996); The Risen Jesus and Future Hope, (Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2003); Explaining Away Jesus Resurrection: The Recent Revival of
Hallucination Theories, Christian Research Journal, 23 (2001), pp. 2631; Experiences
of the Risen Jesus: The Foundational Historical Issue in the Early Proclamation of the
Resurrection, Dialog: A Journal of Theology, 45.3 (Fall 2006), pp. 288297.
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die for this belief. (7) This message was central in the early church
preaching and (8) was especially proclaimed in Jerusalem, where Jesus
had died shortly before.
As a result of this message, (9) the church was born and grew, (10)
with Sunday as the primary day of worship. (11) James, the brother of
Jesus and a skeptic, was converted to the faith when he also believed
he saw the resurrected Jesus. (12) A few years later Paul the persecutor
of Christians was also converted by an experience that he, similarly,
believed to be an appearance of the risen Jesus.23
Habermas wants apologists to begin with the conclusions set by the
scholarly consensus: one of my interests is to ascertain if we can
detect some widespread directions in the contemporary discussions
where are most recent scholars heading on these issues? Of course,
the best way to do this is to comb through the literature and attempt
to provide an accurate assessment.24
The consensus is known from the conclusions set by most scholars
who study the subject, regardless if they are conservatives or liberals.
He explains how he is able to determine what counts as the consensus
in his ambitious article: Resurrection Research from 1975 to the
Present: What are Critical Scholars Saying? Says Habermas: Since
1975, more than 1400 scholarly publications on the death, burial,
and resurrection of Jesus have appeared. Over the last five years, I
have tracked these texts, which were written in German, French,
and English. Well over 100 subtopics are addressed in the literature,
almost all of which I have examined in detail.25 By cataloguing the
major trends in the field, Habermas wants everyone in the dialogue
and/or debate to begin with the same basic evidence. Habermas is
exceptionally skilled at classifying scholarly viewpoints and showing
where they fall in proximity to other positions on the spectrum of
resurrection research.
As in the case with OCollins and Wright, Habermas shows no
concern to use early Christian worship as evidence for Christs
resurrection. When evidence outside of the empty tomb and ap-
pearances is actually invoked, he would rather stress the disciples
cognitive beliefs about the Risen Jesus rather than consult liturgical
practices and other forms of devotion.
(4) William Lane Craig has included conclusions reached in the
philosophy of history and historiography. Similar to Habermas, he
argues that the majority of scholars who study the subject argue
23
Gary R. Habermas and Antony G.N. Flew, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?: The
Resurrection Debate, Terry L. Miethe, (ed) (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987),
pp. 19, 20.
24
Gary R. Habermas, Resurrection Research from 1975 to the Present: What are
Critical Scholars Saying? Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 3.2 (January
2005), pp. 135153
25
Ibid., 135.
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8 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection
that four facts need to be accounted for: (1) the burial of Jesus;
(2) the discovery of Jesus empty tomb by a group of his women
followers; (3) the post-mortem appearances; and (4), the origin of
the disciples belief in the resurrection despite their predisposition to
the contrary.26 Craig not only posits these four reported facts, but he
also gives arguments in support of them.
Craig then argues that, after various naturalistic hypotheses have
been tried and found wanting by filtering them through standard his-
toriographical principles, the resurrection hypothesis remains the best
explanation of the reported facts. In order for him to make such a
claim, he utilizes the work of C. Behan McCullagha professional
philosopher of history who has no specific concerns about the his-
torical credibility of Jesus resurrection.27 McCullaghs has explained
and justified the traditional criteria that professional historians out-
side the guild of biblical scholars have used to assess the strength
of competing causal theories in history: explanatory scope, explana-
tory power, plausibility, whether the theory is ad hoc, and whether
it is consonant with other acceptable beliefs. With these principles
in mind, Craig has consistently and convincingly demonstrated the
inadequacies of naturalistic explanations of the data.
Craig has also written the best defense of the empty tomb in
recent times.28 His talent of debating the resurrection with hard-
headed skeptics on college campuses in North America and Europe
has withstood the test of time, and it testifies to the strength of
the rational apologists case.29 Michael Liconas published works
show the influence of Craig and Habermas.30 Not to be overlooked,
Licona shows even more familiarity with the philosophy of history
and historiography than his two mentors.
Like Habermas, OCollins and Wright, Craig appeals to the origin
of the disciples belief in the risen Christ, but again this does not
necessarily include the Christians earliest practices. Cognitive beliefs
26
William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd ed.
(Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), pp. 350400. See also Assessing the New Testament
Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus, 3rd ed., Studies in the Bible and
Early Christianity 16 (Toronto: Edwin Mellen, 2004).
27
C. Behan McCullagh, Justifying Historical Descriptions (Cambridge: Cambridge
University, 1984); idem, The Logic of History: Putting Postmodernism in Perspective
(New York: Routledge, 2003).
28
William Lane Craig, The Historicity of the Empty Tomb of Jesus, New Testament
Studies, 31 (1985), pp. 3967.
29
Paul Copan and Ronald Tacelli, (eds), Jesus Resurrection: Fact or Figment?: A De-
bate Between William Lane Craig and Gerd Ludemann (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity,
2000); Paul Copan, (ed), Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?: A Debate Between William
Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998).
30
Michael Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2010). See also Michael Licona and Gary Habermas,
The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2004).
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are used to demonstrate that it would not make sense for these beliefs
to originate in either a Jewish or Greco-Roman religious matrix. Only
the resurrection hypothesis can satisfactorily account for the very fact
of the disciples belief in it. By including the work of Bauckham,
Hurtado and Dunn, however, Craigs case can only be strengthened
and made more persuasive to unbelievers and others opponents of
Christian faith.
(5) Richard Swinburnes first prong in the overall argument for
the resurrection consists of the pertinent reasons that can be utilized
apart from the influence of Gods revelation to show that God is
the kind of God who would want to become a human and do the
types of things that Jesus Christ would do.31 Swinburnes contribution
therefore consists of those a priori reasons for expecting God to
become incarnate (and be raised from the dead) in human history.
A priori reasons arise from the very nature of God and from the
general condition of the human race why we should expect them to
be true.32 While it was not necessary for God to become human
and be raised from the dead, there are nevertheless good reasons to
think God would do such a thing. I have argued that, if there is such
a God, there are a priori reasons. . . for supposing that he. . . would
act in history to do the things which Christianity claims that he has
done.33
One would be hard-pressed to establish anything about Jesus or
his resurrection without first establishing these a priori reasons for
expecting God to make a personal entry into human history. To be
sure, there is no contradiction in proposing an intellectually satisfying
alternative to the resurrection hypothesis on historical grounds and
maintaining the truth of theism. Thus Swinburnes work is hugely
important. Apologists must pay attention to these a priori reasons,
laying out a refurbished case for Easter Faith. The traditional case
for Christian theism must become more forceful: If God were so cold
and detached from humanity, it is difficult to conceive why he would
have created the universe in the first place.
After Swinburnes a priori reasons have been outlined and ex-
plained, the discussion turns to what Swinburne dubs the a posteriori
evidence for Christian faith. The a posteriori evidence consists of
the traditional historical evidences for the resurrection: the empty
tomb and appearances. He concludes that the a posteriori evidence
for Jesus resurrection fits in with the a priori reasons better than
any other evidences: Alternative hypotheses have always seemed to
31
Richard Swinburne, The Resurrection of God Incarnate (Oxford: Oxford University,
2003).
32
Richard Swinburne, Was Jesus God? (Oxford: Oxford University, 2008), p. 5.
33
Ibid., 83.
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10 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection
Larry Hurtado, Richard Bauckham and James Dunn are some of the
most prominent scholars of early Christian worship. Many significant
modifications from Second Temple Judaism to earliest Christianity
are seen in the early patterns and various expressions of worship.
One might ask what is responsible for bringing about these huge
shifts.
First, various designations are given to the Risen Christ, which is
intermixed in different ways:36 Christ Jesus, Jesus Christ, God and
Savior, etc. Further, many terms in early Christianity are taken from
pagan socio-religious contexts and assigned with a new depth of
meaning: lord, church, and baptism would count as examples.37 The
infusion of new meaning provided an inner-rationale and reminder
for the Christians of the importance of their gatherings.
Another reason to believe Christians worshiped the Risen Christ
is seen by the doxologies used in reference to him.38 Their worship
drove the earliest believers to search the Hebrew Scriptures to find
new insights and other answers in light of their newfound faith.39
This was known as charismatic exegesis, and it usually did not occur
unless they experienced something profound.
The New Testament writers presupposed Jewish monotheism
(Rom. 3:2830; 1 Cor. 8:16; John 10:30), but they infused belief
in one God with a definitive, new meaning at an exceptionally early
date. Says Bauckham: With the inclusion of Jesus in the unique iden-
tity of YHWH, the faith of the Shema is affirmed and maintained,
34
Richard Swinburne, Evidence for the Resurrection, in Stephen T. Davis, Daniel
Kendall, and Gerald OCollins, (eds), The Resurrection: An Interdisciplinary Symposium
on the Resurrection of Jesus (Oxford: Oxford University, 1997), p. 201.
35
Swinburne, The Resurrection of God Incarnate, pp. 163170.
36
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, p. 118. Cf. 176, 180, 406.
37
Larry W. Hurtado, At the Origins of Christian Worship: The Context and Character
of Earliest Christian Devotion. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 2, 53, 55.
38
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, p. 152. Cf. 615.
39
Ibid., 73, 74, 184, 378, 388, 389, 401, 410, 564578, 651.
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40
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on
the New Testaments Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008),
p. 106.
41
Ibid., 127151.
42
Ibid., x.
43
Larry W. Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?: Historical Questions
About Earliest Devotion to Jesus, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), pp. 4245.
44
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, pp. 132, 133. Cf. 165.
45
Larry W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish
Monotheism, 2d. ed. (New York: T & T Clark, 2003), p. 99.
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12 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection
he was a living divine power who own the meal and presides over
it. This means that he was seen a as Lord of the entire Christian
congregation. This was striking at the time, especially considering
that it was celebrated in contradistinction to the cult meals of the
pagan gods in Roman religion; (5) In the early churchs hymns, the
Christians literally sang to Jesus by using Old Testament Psalms,
interpreted Christologically; (6) The use of prophetic speech in the
context of Christian worship was seen and experienced as the voice
of the risen Jesus.46
Noting that there is nothing compelling in Second Temple Judaism
to compel the first Christians to fabricate these cultic actions (though
Hurtado argues that the Jewish veneration of the patriarchs, heroic
figures, principal angels, and personified attributes of God assisted
the first believers with the conceptual categories needed to verbally
articulate what happened to Jesus),47 Hurtado says early devotion was
characteristically expressed in terms of Jesus special relationship to
God, and in conjunction with Gods action in the world.48 In the
earliest evidence we have (Pauls letters), Jesus holds a status of
divinity, or at least participating in divinity.49 This is attested by
the belief in Jesus pre-existence, which denotes the fact that Jesus
origin and meaning lie exclusively in God, and that his appearance
in history corresponds to his role in the redemption of the human
race.50
Contending that there are two ways to interpret the pertinent evi-
dence from the Second Temple Jewish era, Bauckham argues that the
Christians earliest beliefs about Jesus were not possible by apply-
ing to Jesus a Jewish category of semi-divine intermediary status, but
by identifying Jesus directly with the one God of Israel, including
Jesus in the unique identity of this one God.51 He analyzes bibli-
cal passages such as Deuteronomy 6:46 and the Decalogue. Second
Temple Jews were strictly monotheistic well before the origins of the
Christian movement. Thus, the inclusion of Jesus along with God
cries out for some sort of extraordinary explanation.
At the time of Jesus, Jews understood God as the exclusive Creator
and Ruler of the universe. Thus, Bauckham: To our question, In
what did Second Temple Judaism consider the uniqueness of the one
God to consist, what distinguished God as unique from all other re-
ality, including beings worshipped as gods by Gentiles?, the answer
given again and again, in a wide variety of Second Temple Jewish
46
Ibid., 100114.
47
Ibid., 1792, 123, 124.
48
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, p. 52.
49
Ibid., 104.
50
Ibid., 126. Cf. 118126.
51
Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, p. 3.
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literature, is that the only true God, YHWH, the God of Israel, is
the sole Creator of all things and sole Ruler of all things.52 As in
the case of Hurtado, Jesus is suddenly seen as the creator along with
God.53 Bauckham insists:
if we attend carefully and accurately, on the one hand, to the ways
in which Second Temple Judaism characterized the unique identity
of the one and only God and, on the other hand, to what New
Testament writers say about Jesus, it becomes abundantly clear that
New Testament writers include Jesus in the unique identity of the
one God. They do so carefully, deliberately, consistently and com-
prehensively, by including Jesus in precisely those divine character-
istics which for Second Temple Judaism distinguished the one God
as unique. All New Testament Christology is, in this sense, very high
Christology, stated in the highest terms available in first-century Jewish
theology.54
On the one hand, Second Temple Jews viewed YHWH as the only
sovereign being. On the other hand, Christians saw the Exalted Je-
sus as sovereign.55 While Jews held that YHWH was higher than
all angelic beings, the earliest Christians affirmed that Jesus was
higher than all angels.56 While YHWH has a unique divine name
in the Old Testament, so Christians also give Jesus the same unique
name. Lastly, Jews held that God was to receive exclusive worship,
not worship alongside of other pagan deities.57 The first Christians
exclusively worshipped Jesus. No other gods in the Greco-Roman
world deserved honorable worship alongside of him.
But James Dunn is quick to add that the Scriptural witness in
support of worshipping Jesus is unable to point us in any conclusive
direction: the use of proskynein in the sense of offering worship to
Jesus seems to be rather limited.58 With respect to the early churchs
prayer, hymns, sacred times, places, meals, and people, the data is
more complex and the implications not so clearly drawn.59 For him
the whole notion of worshipping Jesus is misleading. The question
is not so much Did the first Christians worship Jesus? as much as
it should be Was early worship possible without Jesus? Worship,
therefore, was not possible without including Jesus and God in the
power of the Spirit: Worship of Jesus that is not worship of God
52
Ibid., 9; cf. 10, 11
53
Ibid., 87.
54
Ibid., 32.
55
Ibid., 23.
56
Ibid., 23, 24.
57
Ibid., p. 84.
58
James Dunn, The First Christians Worship Jesus?: The New Testament Evidence,
(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2010), p. 12.
59
Ibid., 39.
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14 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection
60
Ibid., 6.
61
Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?, 55.
62
Ibid., 135.
63
Ibid., 167, 173, 182, 183, 203, 215, 605.
64
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, pp. 91, 92.
65
Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, ix.
66
Hurtado, One God, One Lord, p. 99.
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67
Ibid., 100.
68
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, pp. 483, 484, 650.
69
Hurtado, At the Origins of Christian Worship, p. 4.
70
The Romans allowed for many different forms of religious expression. Thus, it was
unique for the Christians to enter the highly diverse and pious religious scene of the Roman
world and claim that all religions other than Christianity were illicit.
71
Hurtado, At the Origins of Christian Worship, p. 18. Cf. 39. Likewise with scant
basis are the occasional scholarly assertions of a trend or tendency toward monotheism
in the Roman period. To be sure, among some sophisticated writers in the ancient world
there were attempts to posit a unity behind the diversity of gods. But this is hardly
monotheism as we know it in classical forms of Judaism, Christianity or Islam, in which
one deity is worshipped to the exclusion of all others.
72
The quick success of Christianity partly depended on showing where pagan religious
devotion was in error. This, in turn, provided an opportunity to share the Christian message
of the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ.
73
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, pp. 77, 402.
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16 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection
was the most vivid form in which devotion to Jesus was expressed
in the earliest centuries.74 Dying for ones beliefs indicated to the
public on a large scale that some Christians were willing to go to
any length of penalty to remain faithful followers of Jesus. Of course,
this made outsiders curious and attracted them to investigate the new
Christian heresy.
Early Christian worship did not take place in decorative temples;
not did it consist of sacrifices made to God through the intercessions
of a hereditary priesthood:75 Along with the lack of temples or cult
images, Hurtado writes, the earliest Christians offered no sacrifices
to their God, and in this as well seemed to their pagan neighbors an
odd sort of religious group. Elsewhere, he says, Their lack of these
important normal components of religion is part of the reason why
some outsiders regarded Christian groups as more like philosophi-
cal associations than religious groups.76 Christian worship so unique
in the beginning in that it transcended the lines of differentiation
and marginalization operative in their life outside of the worship
setting.77 The Christians also disputed the Jews inappropriate rev-
erence for Gods own heavenly retinue of angels or for other agents
of God such as the revered patriarchs (e.g., Moses) or messiahs.78
Unlike some Jews, the Christians did not recognize other beings in
corporate worship to God.
Christs followers made the radical claim that Jesus must be wor-
shipped because he was Messiahthe mediator of cosmic redemp-
tion.79 This is truly remarkable, in Hurtados view, given that the
Jesus messianic titles and the worship given to him occurred only
after he was crucified in a Greco-Roman cultural and religious milieu.
Crucifixion had a lowly reputation. From ancient letter of Pliny the
Younger, we learn that the Christians would rather die than wor-
ship and bow down to any of the multitude of gods in the Roman
pantheon, or to an image of the emperor himself.80 Not to be
overlooked, the social and political costs involved make it remark-
able that the young faith proved as attractive as it obviously was for
some. . .81 Something powerfully attractive must have resonated with
outsiders, making early Christianity attractive, enough to the point
74
Ibid., 619. Cf. 619624.
75
Hurtado, At the Origins of Christian Worship, pp. 2326, 46.
76
Ibid., 25.
77
Ibid., 46.
78
Ibid., 29, 30.
79
Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?, pp. 4, 5.
80
Ibid., 13.
81
Ibid., 57.
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82
Ibid., 5682.
83
Ibid., 29, 30.
84
Ibid., 3842.
85
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, p. 195.
86
Ibid., 196.
87
Ibid., 4.
88
Ibid., 24. Cf. 40, 110, 111, 215, 216.
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18 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection
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95
Ibid., 5.
96
Dale C. Allison, The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus, (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 2229.
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20 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection
97
Richard Bauckham, The Lords Day, in D.A. Carson, (ed), From Sabbath to Lords
Day: A Biblical, Historical, and Theological Investigation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
1982), pp. 236240.
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the Greek word ecclesia with a new meaning for the purposes of
evangelical belief and practice). Sometimes religious experiences in
corporate worship settings provide an impetus to sustain the move-
ment and keep it going.98 Various causes have different values and
contribute to forming the phenomena of Christian worship. True, his-
torians rarely affirm that entire movements can be accounted for by
a single cause. Many conditions surrounding the primary event under
consideration (that is, Jesus resurrection), however, might contribute
to its ongoing influence and vitality.
But sometimes a single event (Jesus resurrection) can have trace-
able ripples effects that are manifested in the future in different times
and places (and sometimes in the distant future in different geograph-
ical regions that were not immediately affiliated with either Judaism
or Christianity). Each piece of evidence does not have to bear the full
weight of the case. Each piece is presented by Hurtado and his col-
leagues to create a cumulative case argument. While an accumulated
amount of evidence, while unable to be persuasive if one takes one
piece at a time, becomes much more compelling when qualitatively
combined together. What makes early Christian worship such an im-
portant resource for apologetics is that there is nothing miraculous
about the practices (unlike Jesus resurrection, which is a historical
miracle).
Perhaps the most important factor to consider when analyzing the
origins of Christian worship is to pinpoint the cause (or causes) of
what brought these practices into being. For the real challenge in his-
torical understanding is to discover not only what happened, but also
why (and how) the event occurred as well. For all of the historical
mutations that have been discussed are hugely significant and beg
for some sort of explanation. There are a few causes that are able
to account for them. The first would be pagan religious influences.
Mentioned earlier by Hurtado and Bauckham, pagan influences may
be responsible for providing the Christians with the conceptual cat-
egories needed for articulating their beliefs and practices, but this is
far from affirming that the content of worship is completely pagan.
Both in theology and in practice, Hurtado responds, Greco-Roman
Jews demonstrate concern for Gods supremacy and uniqueness with
an intensity and a solidarity that seem to go far beyond anything
else previously known in the Greco-Roman world.99 Moreover, the
earliest traditions can be traced back to within weeks or months
after Jesus execution. Thus the antiquity and the general consis-
tency of Christian worship practices, starting from Jerusalem outward,
98
Luke Timothy Johnson, Religious Experience in Earliest Christianity: A Missing
Dimension in New Testament Study, (Minneapolis, MJN: Fortress, 1998).
99
Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?, p. 130.
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22 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection
IV. Conclusion
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Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection 23
Glenn Siniscalchi
16 Venus Way Sewell, NJ 08080
United States
gbsiniscalchi@yahoo.com
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