Christology • Christianity • Intermediate
Worship of Jesus
Primary question: How did strictly monotheistic Jewish believers come, within a generation, to worship Jesus alongside God without abandoning their monotheism?
Argument map
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Common mistakes
Don't say
Assuming 'worship of Jesus' in the New Testament straightforwardly abandons or contradicts Jewish monotheism.
Instead
Recognize Hurtado's 'binitarian' framework, in which Jesus is included within, rather than added alongside as a rival to, a maintained and explicitly reaffirmed monotheism.
Don't say
Treating proskyneo ('bow down,' 'worship') as automatically indicating full cultic worship wherever it appears.
Instead
Distinguish contexts of general respectful obeisance from the fuller devotional pattern (prayer, hymns, doxology, invocation) that constitutes the stronger evidentiary basis.
Don't say
Assuming Bart Ehrman or Maurice Casey deny any early high view of Jesus at all.
Instead
Note both scholars accept substantial and reasonably early exaltation Christology while disputing the earliest, highest 'inclusion in worship' framing Hurtado defends.
Don't say
Treating the resurrection/visionary-experience debate as a settled question either way.
Instead
Present it as a genuinely and seriously contested historical question among careful scholars, engaging both sides honestly.
What would change my mind? — Christian position
If manuscript or historical evidence established that hymnic and devotional material directing worship to Jesus reliably postdates a much later period than currently believed, arising after significant Hellenistic influence had reshaped Jewish-Christian practice, the case for an early, internally Jewish origin of this devotion would be considerably weakened.
What would change my mind? — Skeptical position
If additional very early evidence (comparable in date to or earlier than Paul's letters) further confirmed direct cultic invocation and worship of Jesus specifically among Aramaic-speaking, Palestinian, thoroughly Jewish believers, the gradual-exaltation model would face an even heavier explanatory burden.
Why does this matter?
The rapid emergence of worship directed to Jesus within a fiercely monotheistic Jewish milieu is one of the most historically striking features of earliest Christianity, requiring serious explanation regardless of one's ultimate theological conclusions. It bears directly on debates about the origins of Trinitarian theology, the reliability of early source material, and how quickly transformative religious experience or conviction can reshape even the most deeply held religious commitments. The scholarly debate here (Hurtado versus Ehrman/Casey) represents some of the most careful and historically serious work in New Testament Christology.
For further study
Primary and secondary sources on both sides of this question. Reading the strongest opposing case is part of the work, not a concession.
Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity — Larry Hurtado
The definitive study cataloging early devotional evidence for worship of Jesus.
One God, One Lord — Larry Hurtado
Hurtado's earlier foundational work situating Jesus-devotion within Jewish monotheistic context.
How Jesus Became God — Bart Ehrman
The leading alternative gradual-exaltation account, engaging Hurtado's thesis critically.
From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God — Maurice Casey
A minimalist reading emphasizing veneration short of full cultic worship in earliest Christianity.
The Son of God: The Origin of Christology and the History of Jewish-Hellenistic Religion — Martin Hengel
Classic study of the remarkable speed of early Christological development.