Book Review: How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?

I hope that the preceding studies will have communicated to readers something of the intriguing questions and hotly contested issues that justify and comprise the historical investigation of early devotion to Jesus. It may be somewhat unsettling for some Christians, at least initially, to explore the origins of Christian faith as a subject of historical inquiry. I trust, however, that Christians will see that a historical appreciation of the emergence of devotion to Jesus need not pose a challenge to continuing to revere Jesus as rightful recipient of devotion with God. Indeed, I hope that Christians will welcome any light that can be cast on the faith of their religious forebears from the earliest period of the Christian movement.

Larry W. Hurtado
How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?

The thing that struck me the most as I finished Hurtado's book, was that he never once said point blank, "Jesus is God". In fact, he didn't come to a definite conclusion one way or the other on the matter (barring the above-quoted statement). He simply presented his evidence, discussed why he disagreed with opposing views, and let the reader come to his or her own conclusions. I rather like that.

Hurtado is a scholarly writer but he did "tone down" the chapters of this book, allowing them to be a bit more accessible to the "average reader". The first four chapters were originally presentations he gave as part of the inaugural lectures in the Deichmann Annual Lecture Series at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer-Sheva, Israel (2004). The last four chapters were taken from some of Hurtado's earlier published works. I wouldn't recommend this book for a little light reading before bedtime, but I do recommend it for someone who wants to investigate the history of early devotion to Jesus by his Jewish and Gentile disciples, particularly within the context of 1st century Jewish monotheism.

I very much appreciated Hurtado's attention to the environment, sociology, history, and theology of the Jewish people of 1st century "Roman Judea" and how it became possible for Jews to revere Jesus while not (apparently) violating the Shema (God is One). I also never concluded that Hurtado's evidence resulted in Jesus being co-equal to God in deity...exactly.

The book repeatedly makes use of the term "dinitarianism" (as opposed to "binitarianism", which would be two Gods; God the Father and God the Son) which generally means that God shared or more accurately, that God "delegated" some of His authority and divine nature to the Jewish Messiah, allowing high honors to be afforded Jesus, but only for the glory of God. Hurtado paints a picture of Jesus as a unique being with a position in the spiritual hierarchy unlike any other being. He is worthy of honor and glory, but only as it glorifies the Father. In other words, Jesus doesn't stand alone as an object of devotion and is only acknowledged in reverence as it relates to worshiping the One God.

The biggest problem for this book to solve was not how Gentile converts to the Messianic (early Christian) faith could worship Jesus as God and God (the Father) as God, but how Jews could bend, twist, or mutate ethical monotheism to allow Jesus to be granted "divine honors". The answer is that Jesus was seen as divine, but not actually "God" by the Jewish disciples. He was (and is) a unique entity who was granted a special status by God as Messiah. However, even Hurtado's mountain of evidence in an early occurrence (within the first 30 years of the ascension) of reverent honors being given to Jesus, does not result in the more modern understanding in God is God and Jesus is God too. Although Hurtado didn't say it outright, how we understand the divine nature of Jesus has indeed "mutated" from the original Jewish perspective that existed within Paul's lifetime. The viewpoint of the status of Jesus has changed from what the Jewish apostles saw and taught, to how subsequent generations of Gentile Christians chose to believe in and respond to Jesus. It is more than likely that the Greek pagan "understanding" that a man could be honored as a "god" became a large part of the development of what we now see as the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. It didn't originate, as such, from the first Jewish disciples.

Hurtado spent a great deal of time and effort factoring in Jewish perspectives of Jesus including a point Levertoff and the FFOZ/Vine of David commentary made about how the death of a great tzadik (righteous sage) could atone for the sins of many, including the nation of Israel (Hurtado, pg 21). However, Hurtado (pg 28) did miss that Jews can and do pray in the merit of (in the name of) a great Rebbe all the time, so that isn't an an iron-clad indication of "godhood" as such.

Hurtado did repeat, on a number of occasions (starting on pg 30), that although Jesus was the first sage or Prophet to be afforded a sort of devotion usually associated with God alone, he was not treated as co-equal to God or as another "person" of God or the "Godhead". In fact, the book states (pg 53) that Jesus continually subordinated himself to God the Father (which I consider that aspect of God referred to as Ayn Sof in Kabbalistic thought) and the words of the Master reflect this most clearly:

Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does." -John 5:19

"By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me." -John 5:30

If Jesus made a point to subordinate himself to God and if that's how his early Jewish disciples came to understand him, then it would not violate Jewish monotheism to give honors to Jesus, just as God delegated honors to the Son, and not have it be the worship that is given to God alone. Humanity must exalt God and God only. God exalts the Messiah and gives him a special and unique divine status among all beings in existence. That seems to be the general message I get from reading Hurtado. It isn't the same message I get from Evangelical Christianity that God is God, Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God (and as in other books I've reviewed that have addressed the Christ as deity issue, Hurtado barely mentions God's Spirit and never suggests that it is also God).

It's as if God "shared" something with Jesus that no other being possessed (pg 95). The closest analog we have is Moses, and when we understand that God elevated the name of the Messiah above every name, we see that the merit of Yeshua (Jesus) is the highest form of merit, not unlike (but superior to) praying to and approaching God in the merit of Moses or Abraham, or the patriarchs or the prophets.

Hurtado spends an entire chapter analyzing Philippians 2:6-11 as an ancient, honorific hymn acknowledging Jesus, which I wrote about last week. At that time, I drew a comparison between the Kabbalistic concept of Ayn Sof as "the Father" and the Shechinah (Divine Presence) as somehow being manifest as "the Son". If Judaism can see the Ayn Sof, the unobservable, unknowable, ultimate creative force that is God and the Shechinah as the physical, visible, touchable, "experience-able" manifestation of God in our world and not see those two concepts as "two God", then it may be possible to apply the same illustration to God and the Messiah and still have One God.

I'm not saying that Hurtado went this far in his presentation of early Jewish and Gentile devotion to Jesus, but for me, it's the logical extension of what Hurtado has written. Glory and honor is given only to God through the Messiah (pg 137), not for the sake of Jesus alone. That may well satisfy the Jewish requirement of monotheism and still give the ancient (and modern) Jewish disciples the ability to give honor to the Messiah's divine and unique status. The subsequent Gentile believers, not having a Jewish educational and experiential background, very likely "took it too far" (I'm extrapolating from Hurtado's writing now) as evidenced (one example) by the Johannine community being evicted from the synagogue for "blending" God the Father and God the Son (the Jewish Messiah). This probably (my opinion) is because the newly-minted Gentile Christians couldn't "get" how Jews saw God and the Messiah as closely related, but still different and separate. When a Jew says "God is One", then He's One". Subsequent Gentile Christian doctrine made it possible for the One to be two in the eyes of the Jewish Messianics, crossing the line, so to speak, between worshiping God and honoring the Messiah, and worshiping God and Jesus as "co-Gods".

Hurtado goes so far as to refer to Jesus as plenipotentiary, which paints a picture of Jesus as a "person" who has been delegated full authority and power by the source, as God's representative and "ambassador" but not creating Jesus literally as a God. It's like the President granting our nation's ambassador to a foreign country full powers and rights to negotiate a treaty. It doesn't make the ambassador the President, but it does give him/her complete authority to make a treaty as if the ambassador were the President. They are two separate people, each with their own status and position, but certain powers and rights are granted from one to the other.

This probably isn't what some of you wanted to hear, but it's what I get out of Hurtado's book as filtered through my beliefs and my personality. That's what a book review is.

Whatever you may think of my conclusions, I highly recommend Larry Hurtado's How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? if you want an honest, well considered (especially in his treatment of 1st century Judaism), and thoughtful perspective on how Jesus came to be granted divine honors and worship by his Jewish and Gentile disciples...and how that carries forward to those of us today who call ourselves disciples of the Master.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.