Writing of the Day: Monotheism

Trying to write a chapter on "Hebrews and Christology" for a book I'm under contract for: A New Perspective on Hebrews.

Let me just say how amazed I am at how the accessibility of scholarship has changed. Google alone is fantastic. Good grief, when you think of how I scoured paper encyclopedias for some hint of knowledge about things in high school.

But this morning I went from thinking,

1. "I wish I could get my hands on Larry Hurtado's most recent article on monotheism" to

2. Doing a Google search on the journal it's in, "Journal of Ancient Judaism," published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht to

3. Realizing I can buy and download a copy for 6,20 €.

Reading Hurtado's summary, I was glad to see him saying things that I am also saying in the first part of my chapter. For example, he says in his summary, "It’s hard to find ancient Jews (or Christians) who denied the existence of all other divine beings. Instead, for them the issue was the validity of worshipping any deity other than the one deity of the biblical tradition."

I think I differ a little with Hurtado on the question of early Jewish and Christian worship, but I think he is spot on with this comment here.

Now off to read his article in all its 8 dollar glory...