Antiquitopia

I have been reading some John Donne lately during my evermore frequent bouts with insomnia (is this the plight of all academics?), and I came across a couplet on prayer that I found interesting: Hear this prayer Lord: O Lord deliver us From trusting in those prayers, though poured out thus. (John Donne, Litanies XIV.125-6) I am fascinating by this prayer, since it is a prayer to deliver us from trusting in prayers--a truly paradoxical sentence.

It has been a while since I have posted on Bauckham's Jesus and the God of Israel . I have been busy with my own research lately, but thought I should get something up before too long. To see earlier posts, follow the tags back. Chapter 4 is on the worship of Jesus in Early Christianity. In this chapter, Bauckham discusses the significance of Jesus worship, which he sees as continuous from the New Testament to the great ecumenical councils, particularly Nicaea and Chalcedon. He does not, however, as clearly delineate what constitutes worship as McGrath does. In short, he does not compare and contrast worship of God in second temple Judaism with worship of Jesus in the New Testament in terms of the range from simple honor and reverence to full sacrificial cult. B note that the origins of Jesus worship are shrouded in mystery, but evidence points toward the earliest Palestinian Jewish Christianity. Jesus is already considered risen, exalted, and continuously active in the commu...