The Jesus Blog: Hurtado on Bousset's Kyrios Christos

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Hurtado on Bousset's Kyrios Christos

I am happy to welcome Baylor University Press to The Jesus Blog family! You may have already noticed that BUP is now sponsoring this here blog and advertising some of their finest products. Among their latest is a new edition of Wilhelm Bousset's classic history of Christian origins: Kyrios Christos. This edition features a new introduction by Larry Hurtado. If you know Hurtado's work, you'll remember that he has turned his critical eyes often to Kyrios Christos. Indeed, one of Hurtado's very first publications critiques Bousset's thesis on multiple levels: Larry W. Hurtado, “New Testament Christology: A Critique of Bousset’s Influence,” Theological Studies 40 (1979): 306-17. Moreover, Hurtado's herculean effort in producing Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity is in many ways an answer to the scholarly assumptions made standard by Bousset.

With this in mind, Hurtado is perhaps the perfect person to introduce this classic to contemporary readers. Here is an excerpt from his new introduction:

To speak personally, since my first encounter with Kyrios Christos as a graduate student (shortly after this English translation was published), it has been the single most stimulating work on early Jesus-devotion that I have read, and my own work has been shaped in dialogue (and often disagreement) with it as with no other. In various publications spanning some twenty-five years, I have conducted my own research program on the origins and developments of earliest devotion to Jesus, and in all this work Kyrios Christos has been perhaps my principal model and Kyrios Christosmy principal ‘sparring partner.’ Even if it is now judged dated and incorrect in some crucial matters, it is still a stimulating, at times even thrilling, book to read. I am pleased to see this English translation back in print, which will make it more readily available to a new generation of readers.

I am grateful that BUP and Prof. Hurtado have taken the time to bring this important book to our attention again.

-anthony

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James Crossley (PhD, Nottingham) is Professor of Bible, Society, and Politics at St. Mary's University, Twickenham, London. In addition to most things historical Jesus, his interests typically concern Jewish law and the Gospels, the social history of biblical scholarship, and the reception of the Bible in contemporary politics and culture. He is co-executive editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.

Christine Jacobi studied protestant theology and art history in Berlin and Heidelberg. She is research associate at the chair of exegesis and theology of the New Testament and apocryphal writings. She completed her dissertation at the Humboldt-University of Berlin in 2014. She is the author of Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus? Analogien zwischen den echten Paulusbriefen und den synoptischen Evangelien (BZNW 213), Berlin: de Gruyter 2015. Christine Jacobi is a member of the „August-Boeckh-Antikezentrum“ and the „Berliner Arbeitskreis für koptisch-gnostische Schriften“.

Chris Keith (PhD, Edinburgh) is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity and Director of the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, London.

Anthony Le Donne (PhD, Durham) is Associate Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary. He is the author/editor of seven books. He is the co-founder of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue and Sacred Texts Consultation and the co-executive editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.

Brant Pitre (PhD, University of Notre Dame) is Professor of Sacred Scripture at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. Among other works, he is the author of Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile (Mohr-Siebeck/Baker Academic, 2005), and Jesus and the Last Supper (Eerdmans, 2015). He is particularly interested in the relationship between Jesus, Second Temple Judaism, and Christian origins.

Rafael Rodríguez (PhD, Sheffield) is Professor of New Testament at Johnson University. He has published a number of books and essays on social memory theory, oral tradition, the Jesus tradition, and the historical Jesus, as well as on Paul and Pauline tradition. He also serves as co-chair of the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media section of the Society of Biblical Literature.

Baker Academic

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Hurtado on Bousset's Kyrios Christos

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