If you're looking for the final, decisive nail in the coffin of the assertion that Christ's divinity originated in later Gentile circles rather than with Jesus' earliest followers, this is your book. In fact, this is quite possibly the most valuable and most thoroughly documented volume of NT scholarship that I've come across thus far, an absolute "must-have" for the serious student of NT studies.

The author's focus in this volume is the devotion to Jesus of various Christian groups from 30-170 A.D. IOW, how did these early Christians view Jesus? This is not, as Hurtado puts it, "a New Testament Christology, not a history of early Christianity, and not a history of early Christian doctrines. It is a historical analysis of the beliefs and religious practices that constituted devotion to Jesus as a divine figure in earliest Christianity. It is about the role of the figure of Jesus in the religious life and thought of earliest Christians." [pg. xiii] Hurtado explains that one of his main motivations for the penning of this massive work was the highly influential Kyrios Christos, written by William Bousset early in the 20th century. Bousset argued that the devotion to Jesus as a divine figure originated at a secondary (yet early) stage in "Hellenistic Gentile" communities, and that such a view of Jesus does not have a provenance in the earliest Palestinian Jewish Christian community(ies). Hurtado states that "In combined depth and scope, erudition, and influence, nothing equivalent has appeared in the nearly ninety years now since it was first published." [pg. 19] Hurtado's goal was thus to provide a comprehensive, yet fresh, analysis of this subject.

In the introduction, Hurtado provides a brief critique of Bousset's basic arguments and points out various weaknesses found therein. It is insisted by the author that devotion to Jesus as a divine figure can be traced back to the earliest circles of Palestinian Jewish Christianity, and stresses, in line with the much needed recent wave of "Third Quest" scholarship, that the pertinent issues surrounding Jesus are most properly approached and understood in their JEWISH context. In the opening chapter, the author takes a look at how exactly "Monotheism" is to be understood within its ancient Jewish context followed up by a brief look at how Jesus should be understood within this paradigm. From that point forward, Hurtado approaches evidence mainly on a "book-by-book" basis. That is, starting from the earliest surviving Christian writings (i.e. Paul's universally accepted letters), and moving forward in (the generally accepted) chronological order, the aspects of Jesus-devotion are considered based on what is found in the New Testament as well as sundry other 1st and 2nd century documents (whether they are commonly accepted to have originated from orthodox or heterodox Christian circles).

In the treatment of the Pauline epistles, the implications of the various titles used for Jesus are considered against their historical *Jewish* backdrop. This includes of course the abundant use of "Christ", Kyrios, as well as the concept of Jesus' divine Sonship. Another very interesting topic considered is that of Christ's pre-existence. Hurtado claims that this idea is one that is widely recognized to be present in the Pauline letters, yet makes the excellent point that often the relevant references are made in such a way that already assumes the recipients' knowledge of this concept-the implications of which indicate that the concept of Jesus' pre-existence was deeply embedded into Christian tradition at a very early stage. Data stemming from early creeds, most particularly Philippians 2:6-11, I Corinthians 11:23-26, and I Corinthians 15:1-8 are also examined.

Up next comes a thorough discussion of the data stemming from Judean Jewish Christianity, the earliest followers of Christ. The author explains that this was considered second to the undisputed Pauline data because, while some New Testament documents preserve important facts regarding the earliest church, we do not have an actual extant document written by those earliest followers (The Gospels of Matthew and John, of course, would be among the NT writings that possibly negate this assertion, but traditional authorship of these books is commonly disputed and Hurtado, as explained above, is working via an approach that is widely accepted by scholars). Hurtado analyzes, among other things, the data regarding the earliest church from creeds that can be traced back to the earliest stages of Christianity, the evidence from Paul's "acquaintance" with Judean Christianity in his epistles, as well as a section dealing with the early material preserved in Acts (particularly the 1st part of the book). Another excellent point discussed by Hurtado in this section is what he calls a "conspicuous silence" in Paul's letters regarding debate over whether or not Christ should be revered as divine. It is obvious from his epistles that Paul was not shy in challenging his detractors on theological disagreements. The greatest difficulty Paul seemed to face with Jewish Christian opponents was on the issue of whether or not Gentile converts must by necessity keep the Torah. However, it is pointed out that not a hint is to be found anywhere that there was any dispute between Paul and his opponents regarding the extent to which devotion to Jesus should be carried. Hurtado acknowledges that this is an argument from silence, yet given the very powerful monotheistic bent of Second-Temple Judaism, with the accompanying outrage that would have inevitably resulted should there have been a sudden innovation by the time of Paul's writing from treating Christ as merely human to treating him as divine, this silence at the very least demands consideration.

In the next section Hurtado takes a look at the evidence from Q. Unlike a recent contingent of scholars that are expressing their doubts (to differing degrees) about what can be known about Q (or even if such a document ever existed), Hurtado expresses a high degree of confidence not only that it existed, but also that it can even be basically reconstructed from the sources we have. He does, however, rightly caution against endeavors to find in Q evidence of an "earliest form" of Christianity that did not revere Jesus as divine. After all, as he points out, even if Q presents a non-divine Jesus, the evidence that would predate the composition of Q, such as that from the very early creedal material found in various points within the NT, would negate any assertion that Q represents some "original form of Christianity" that did not view Jesus as divine. Nevertheless, Hurtado was able to easily demonstrate that Q does in fact present a very high Christology, in line with the other NT documents. This section also contains a critique of John Kloppenborg's assertions regarding Christology in Q.

The Gospels are examined next, demonstrating the high Christology found within each of the fourfold collection. It is important to remember here that regardless of what one makes of the historicity of this or that saying or event in the respective Gospels, Hurtado's focus was upon the view of Jesus adopted by the various evangelists. The Gospel of John receives a particularly lengthy treatment (76 pages), with brief studies of a number of issues such as the "I am" sayings, Christ's preexistence, Christ's subordination to the Father, etc. The beliefs of the so-called secessionists from the Johannine community are also surveyed (in as much as is possible) from the remarks made particularly in the Johannine epistles.

The rest of the book goes on to examine various other important 1st or 2nd century documents, including (of course) the other (disputed) documents of the Pauline corpus, the hotly debated Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, the so-called Secret Mark, the Egerton Manuscript, Protoevangelium of James, and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Specific topics covered in the "second century" section of the book include an extended look at both Valentinus and Marcion and their respective "brands" of Christianity (these were chosen because of their substantial influence in the early Christian centuries). Finally, the book winds up with a look at "proto-orthodox" Christianity in the 2nd century (that is, what we consider to be-for all intents and purposes-evangelical Christianity). Such topics discussed in this final section include the phenomena and implications of the widespread use of the OT by Christians to demonstrate the theological foundations for Christianity found therein, the church's ultimate preference for the fourfold Gospel collection (as opposed to a harmonization like Tatian's Diatessaron), and other revelatory volumes such as Revelation, Ascension of Isaiah, and Shepherd of Hermas.

At the end of the author's extensive and painstaking analyses of various forms of Christianity from the earliest years up to about 170 A.D., Hurtado emphatically concludes:

Christians were proclaiming and worshiping Jesus, indeed, living and dying for his sake, well before the doctrinal/creedal developments of the second century and thereafter that have received so much attention in histories of Christian tradition. The early convictions about Jesus and the corresponding devotion offered to him that became so widespread in earliest Christianity were sufficiently robust to nourish the prolonged and vigorous efforts to articulate Christian faith in persuasive doctrinal formulations.

Additionally, in spite of the diversity, it is equally evident that Jesus was central in all the forms of earliest Christianity, proto-orthodox or others, that we can describe with any confidence.

There are so many great sections in this book that my above-attempted summary of what I found to be "highlights" cannot come close to adequately making the point of just how much great stuff can be found within the covers of this volume. The reader should keep in mind that this book is NOT an analysis of what Jesus thought of himself, at least not directly. However, the evidence accumulated by Hurtado, particularly the much more relevant 1st century evidence, conclusively demonstrates that the earliest Christians did indeed attribute a very high Christology to Jesus [to which I'll personally add makes it very highly likely that such beliefs are based on beliefs that Jesus expressed about himself during his ministry].

Another great element to this book worth mentioning is that with virtually every new topic, and even a great many of the subtopics, Hurtado lists a number of helpful references for further study. In fact, I don't think I'm exaggerating by saying that this book would be worth the money just for the bibliography alone! Also, the citations were formatted using footnotes rather than endnotes, making the book much more user-friendly.

To further emphasize the great importance of this volume, it is perhaps appropriate to close this review with the endorsements provided on the back-cover by two highly distinguished NT scholars:

Larry Hurtado's new book is a stunning achievement. It explores with admirable rigor and clarity a central issue all too often ducked or evaded: How, when, and why did devotion to Jesus as a divine figure emerge within earliest Christianity? Hurtado has to negotiate many minefields as he takes his readers across a vast terrain. He is a wise guide whose judgment can be trusted for his scholarship is of the highest order. This book is already on my shortlist of 'books of the decade.' [Graham Stanton, University of Cambridge]