An Old Dog Looking for a New Book

To answer the title question effectively requires more than the citing of a few texts; we must first acknowledge that the way to the answer is more difficult than it appears and recognize that the answer may be less straightforward than many would like. The author raises some fascinating yet vexing questions: What is worship? Is the fact that worship is offered to God (or a god) what defines him (or her) as "G/god?" What does the act of worship actually involve? The conviction that God exalted Jesus to his right hand obviously is central to Christian recognition of the divine status of Jesus. But what did that mean for the first Christians as they sought to reconcile God's status and that of the human Jesus? Perhaps the worship of Jesus was not an alternative to worship of God but another way of worshiping God. The questions are challenging but readers are ably guided by James Dunn, one of the world's top New Testament scholars.

From the product description of:
Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?

I'm getting towards the end of A Complete Idiot's Guide to the Talmud (which is really good, by the way) and am in search of my next book to read. I suppose I've got enough books around the house to choose from, but some of the comments from my recent blog post The Deity Problem piqued my interest. A number of books specifically on the topic of the deity of the Jewish Messiah were suggested. The question is, can I "trust" them?

I don't mean "trust" in that Christian scholars would deliberately lie to people in their books about the evidence supporting Jesus being God (what else would they say?), but "trust" in the sense that, already having reached a conclusion long before they ever did a bit of research, can I really know that their conclusions on "the deity issue" will be completely unbiased and based only on the Biblical record? Also, since these writers are considered "New Testament" experts and scholars, will they even take the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings (the Old Testament, which makes up the first two-thirds of the Bible) into consideration?

The authors could have saved themselves a lot of writing by just inserting one small sentence on a single page of their books saying, "Jesus is God", and that would be the end of it. The world of Christianity (at least as far as I know) universally agrees that Jesus is God; end of story. No ifs, ands, or buts. No questions asked (at least out loud where others might hear them).

Since Christianity takes the matter of Jesus being God on faith (and pretty much for granted), what's the point of research, evidence, discussion and so forth? Why not just accept that Jesus is God (somehow) and let sleeping dogs (or old dogs like me) lie?

Frankly, if the deity of Christ is a settled matter in the church, I really don't know why any scholars, researchers, and other men of letters (none of the authors are women, so I can safely say that last bit) even write such texts? It certainly isn't as an evangelizing tool, since most non-Christians won't read these books and even if they did, a non-believer is unlikely to be convinced that Jesus is Lord and Savior from an academic work.

All that said, I still find myself pondering a number of titles and wondering if I should lay down my hard earned cash to purchase one or more of these books. Here's the short list:

• Jesus and the God of Israel by Richard Bauckham
• Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? by James D. G. Dunn
• How on Earth Did Jesus Become God by Larry W. Hurtado

All three books have good reviews at Amazon, but all of the favorable reviewers are Christians. I did find a poor review of one of the books, but the reviewer wasn't a Christian (see a pattern?). All of the authors are considered very well educated men in their field and have excellent reputations as New Testament scholars. All of their books were written for an audience that doesn't need to be convinced of the deity of Jesus since the audience has already arrived at the desired conclusion defined by the authors.

With all of that bias going on, what can I hope to learn except something like, "Yep, Jesus is God"...?

This dilemma has a parallel in another idea I had recently (but one that I'll probably have to give up) been considering. I've been thinking about taking some Bible or Religious classes, either online or through one of the schools in my area. However, the schools, being Christian schools and based on specific denominations, will carry the biases and theologies of those organizations. The only thing I'll "learn" is how a particular sub-set of Christianity understands the Bible.

For instance, Northwest Nazarene University has a very good reputation, at least locally, in a number of academic areas. They offer different religous programs as well, but when looking at the summary of some of the classes involved, they are very much biased towards how Nazarenes look at the Bible. This isn't exactly a shock, but I attended a Nazarene church for a number of years back when I first became a believer and sadly, they didn't leave a very good impression on me.

See where I'm coming from? What makes it worse, is most of the reading I've done (though not all of it) in relation to religion and faith over the past ten years or so, has either been from "Messianic" or Jewish source material. I suppose I'm just as biased as the Christian books and schools I'm considering but since the Messianic world is going to become an unavailable option for me in a few months, I have to consider alternatives.

Reading a book won't kill me and it's a lot less expensive and time consuming than enrolling in a university class. With that in mind, if you had to choose one of the books in the list above, which one would you pick and why?

The comments section is now open. Let me know what you think.

Thanks.

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