Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism
Overview
It is the premise of Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism that early Christology must focus not simply on historical but also on theological ideas found in Jewish thought and practice. The contributors to this book consider the context and formation of early Jewish and Christian devotion to God alone. The idea of monotheism is critically examined from various perspectives, including the history of ideas, Graeco-Roman religions, early Jewish mediator figures, scriptural exegesis, and the history of its use as a theological category. The essays explore different ways of conceiving of early Christian monotheism today, asking whether the concept should be applied cautiously and with qualifications, or whether it is to be questioned in favor of different approaches to understanding the origins of Jewish and Christian beliefs and worship.
Top Highlights
“How did Jewish Christians accommodate the worship of Jesus and remain monotheists? Hurtado’s answer appeals to a concept of divine agency that was well established in Second Temple Judaism.38 The paradigmatically different, indeed unprecedented, religious experiences of the early Christian communities39 could therefore be given a plausible framework, so that monotheistic belief, rather than being altogether eschewed, could be conceptually reshaped. Though in pre-Christian Jewish sources divine agents could be understood as being close to God and at times as exercising divine powers, they never posed a threat to the exclusive monotheism because they were never really worshipped.” (Page 132)
“Jewish and Christian apologetic directed towards the gentile world, Christian polemic against Judaism, and Jewish reaction against Christianity all appear to reflect a background of divergent Jewish understandings of monotheism.” (Page 23)
“For Christians, then, since Jesus functions as God’s image, the worship of Jesus signifies the worship of God.” (Page 133)
“Bauckham argues that the high Christology expressed in the New Testament does not find its antecedent in the semi-divine, intermediary figures in second temple Judaism; rather he simply proposes that ‘early Christians included Jesus, precisely and unambiguously, within the unique identity of the one God of Israel’” (Pages 134–135)
“The language of bowing and confessing, appropriated from the YHWH text of Isa. 45:23 and now applied to Jesus, clearly envisions a day when he will be worshipped by all creatures.” (Page 134)
- Title: Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism
- Editors: Loren T. Stuckenbruck and Wendy North
- Publisher: T&T Clark
- Publication Date: 2004
- Pages: 255
Loren T. Stuckenbruck is B.F. Wescott Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Durham and is co-editor of the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha.
Dr. Wendy North, formerly of Hull University, is a New Testament scholar.
