My friend and mentor, Larry W. Hurtado, passed from this
life on Monday, November 25. It was Monday night of the Society of Biblical
Literature meeting in San Diego, CA. Somehow it was fitting that Larry departed
while the rest of us were at SBL. Larry loved SBL and was always in top form at
receptions, recalling the events of the day, making introductions, and
generally holding court. I heard about his death as soon as I entered the
T&T Clark reception; it was something of a silver lining to a terribly dark
cloud to receive the news while surrounded by so many of his former Edinburgh
students and colleagues. We raised more than one pint in his honor that night
and I think he would have liked that. I had just texted Larry on Saturday night
from another reception, sending him a picture of me and Paul Middleton, another
of his former students, letting him know that he was missed. His text back was
ominous, telling me he would soon send an email update on his health and that
it looked like it was the end. I received the email on Sunday morning in my
hotel room and exchanged some further emails about plans for his library. That
was last time I heard from him.
It’s hard to put into words Larry’s impact on me and his
other students. Others have written eloquent tributes that have focused upon
his contributions to scholarship, his faith, and devotion to his wife, Shannon.
All that is true and deserving of recognition, but I want to mention also some
other matters. Larry was, in wonderful ways, a hard person to categorize. He
was a Missourian and Pentecostal pastor who moved away from both but never
quite left either altogether. American evangelicals loved Larry because of his
arguments for early high Christology and flocked to study with him, but he was
not nearly as conservative as many thought he was and did not think that early
Jesus followers’ Christology was necessarily “true” because it was “early” or “high.” Theological truth was another category for
him, and he was adamant that no one was going to come to Edinburgh and argue
their presuppositions.
In some ways he was a throwback historical critic who really
did fit entirely within the British academic scene rather than the American one.
Larry loved a pint, a pipe, and cursing. He was a ferocious champion for his
students but also a harsh critic. He suffered no fools in print or in his office,
and handed out few compliments. Once you finally received a compliment from
him, you felt as if you’d climbed a mountain and put a flag in the top. At the
same time, he was also genuinely warm, funny, and always had an open office
door. He took great pride in having brought back Edinburgh’s New Testament program
and great pride in his former students.
I cherish many conversations with him where he challenged
me, corrected me, encouraged me, and congratulated me, and have not time to
recount them all here. Instead, I pass along the most Hurtado-esque story I can
think of, one that has already gone down in SBL lore.
Larry’s The Earliest Christian Artifacts once received a
panel review at SBL. It was a packed room. Bart Ehrman took Larry to task for
doing “theology masked as history.” The
offending matter was that Larry had labelled some of the papyri in his index
with the phrase “New Testament” even though there was no such thing as the “New
Testament” in the period to which those papyri were dated. Bart was right in
the criticism. Larry fought for a bit, but eventually threw his hands up in the
air and said, “Well, fuck it! I am a Christian.”
I saw Larry’s face several times when this story was
recounted in his presence. I swear he took as much pleasure in the F-bomb as he
did in the confession. That was Larry W.
Hurtado.
Professor Larry Hurtado PhD Scholarship Fund
