Calling Jesus "God" in the NT

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Another interesting discussion for your perusal.

Warm regards,

Bro. Williams
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>Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 09:36:01 -0500 (CDT)
>From: "Larry W. Hurtado" <hurtado@cc.umanitoba.ca>
>To: David Moore <dvdmoore@dcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us>
>Cc: B-Greek <b-greek@virginia.edu>, PMOSER@cpua.it.luc.edu
>Subject: Re: Calling Jesus "God" in the NT
>X-UIDL: 811737035.072
>
>May I interject a point in the discussion?  There are *two* 
>distinguishable issues in fact on the table, which even NT scholars tend 
>far too much to confuse, or to think that the answer to the one settles 
>the other.  They are: (1) does the NT every apply the term "theos" to 
>Jesus?  and (2) does the NT support a view of Jesus as "divine" in the 
>way in which God the "Father" is thought of as divine?
>	Please note that use of the epithet "god" either in Greek or in 
>Semitic languages does *not* necessarily indicate what people coming to 
>the term from a long-time Western cultural background load into it.  In 
>Greek, for example, "theos" has a wide, wide semantic range and usage, 
>and can simply = someone manifesting power or authority.  Please, please, 
>it is high time for NT scholars to do two things important for 
>philology:  (1) careful study of contemporary (ancient) usage of terms, 
>more than often done, especially in terms thought theological 
>significant; and (2) some learning of modern linguistics, which could 
>refine and correct considerably the way philological discussions 
>proceed.  Esp. on the latter:  words are not carriers of fixed semantic 
>cargo, but acquire their meaning *when used in sentences*.  So, where, 
>e.g., "theos" appears, we must always seek to understand it in the 
>context of the sentences in which it appears.  There are in fact at least 
>a few instances of the eipthet applied to Jesus in the NT, no question.  
>But the real question is what they authors meant when they used the 
>term--it is not self evident simply by pointing to "theos".  
>	Second, however, even after all this philological work is done, 
>we have still not adequately dealt with the other (the real?) issue:  
>What is the perceived status/meaning of Jesus in the religious 
>life/thought of the NT writers?  The answer to this requires much, much 
>more than simply tabulating the epithets (the now notorious 
>"christological titles") given to Jesus, though these are certainly 
>important matters involved.  In my book, _One God, One Lord:  Early 
>Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism_ (Fortress Press, 1988), 
>I attempted to focus on this latter question, and attempted to identify 
>the scope of relevant data that must be considered to answer it.  This 
>involves esp. looking at the way Christ "functioned" in the religious 
>life and practice of early Christians, particularly in "formal" group 
>worship settings/contexts.  I argue that Christ quickly became an object 
>of worshipping devotion in ways/actions otherwise reserved for God in 
>observant Jewish circles of the time, and that *this* shows a de facto 
>"divine" Christ in the really meaningful sense of the term for ancient 
>Christians.  It took "mainstream/catholic/orthodox" Christianity a few 
>centuries to try to work up a doctrine of God adequate to the devotional 
>practice and its implications that had sprung up within the first few 
>years of the Christian movement.
>
>Larry Hurtado, Religion, Univ. of Manitoba 
>
>