Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Larry Hurtado and "binitarianism"

LARRY HURTADO, in response to a recent BNTC paper by Anthony Thistelton, has clarified his current views on divine recipients of cultic devotion vs. God-discourse in the New Testament: “Binitarian,” “Dyadic,” “Triadic”: Early Christian God-talk and Devotion.
So, those interested primarily in the beliefs and religious outlook of earliest Christianity will perhaps find useful this more recent book, God in New Testament Theology. In any case, I offer two concluding observations: (1) The NT reflects a dyadic devotional pattern, in which God and Jesus feature as the programmatic recipients of devotion, especially corporate worship-devotion; but (2) there is a clear triadic shape to the God-discourse reflected in the NT. In short, I am not an exponent of “binitarianism” (whatever that is), nor have I primarily been concerned to offer a theological evaluation of the evidence of earliest Christian belief and/or devotional practice. My aims have been primarily to analyze these matters and describe them accurately.