Review: Larry Hurtado's 'Destroyer of the Gods'
Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World (Baylor Press, 2017).
Summary of the Book’s Content
In his preface to Destroyer of the Gods, Hurtado starts by stating that he “began this book with the simple aim of highlighting some features of earliest Christianity that made it distinctive, even odd, in the cultural environment of the first three centuries AD.”[1] He then remarks in the introduction that the Christian faith, emerging in the Gentile world of nations, was unlike any other. He contends that Christianity was a “new” religion that embarked on unprecedented growth yet at the same time, resulted in both conflict and persecution where it spread. It was interpreted as being both distinctive, yet familiar.
In Chapter 1, Hurtado’s highlights Jewish criticism of the Christian faith, from Saul (later Paul) and groups such as the Pharisees, to pagan criticism, by “philosophers, rhetoricians, and literary figures, people from the Roman-era intelligentsia.”[2] He contends that the tension was clearly evidenced in all levels of society. He explores Pliny, Galen, Marcus Aurelius, Lucian, and Celsus as examples of writings critically addressing the rise of Christianity. This emphasised that the Christian faith invited commentary because of its unique nature and tenets, but its trajectory in the culture and society as a whole needed to be observed.
Chapter 2 begins with an exploration on the concept of “religion” and how it is understood, historically and in a contemporary setting, outside of the Christian mindset. He highlights that how we understand religion is flawed, for while “[w]e tend to think of “religion” as a distinguishable area of life,” historically speaking, it was not a compartmentalized aspect of human life and society, but rather, an integrated system of living; it encompassed every aspect of an individual’s life.[3] Hurtado then provides a survey of how the “gods” were acknowledged (and how practises associated with them were seen in everyday life). That Christians refused to accept their existence and partake in customs associated with their role in society, marked them as distinct.[4] He contends that as this was practiced across ethnicities who had come to the Christian faith, rather than ethnocentric Israel, it made Christians more distinct.[5] He stresses, “converted pagans had no precedent or established justification for withdrawing from the worship of the gods of their families, cities, and peoples”[6] and notes the uniqueness of the exclusivist and transcendent deity in Christianity.
In Chapter 3, Hurtado explores the concept of religious identity and comments how it was possible to adhere to more than one religious system, es exampled in the “mystery cults.”[7] He states that because “believers were to base their religious life entirely on their relationship with this one deity and their participation in Christian conventicles,”[8] this formed a religious identity unlike any other before, in that other religious groups did allow for regular fellowship and interaction with those of differing religious systems. That Paul spoke often about the fine line between relationships with unbelievers and in particular, matters pertaining to food, made the Christian faith stand out among others. Hurtado stress that Gentile converts did not become Jewish in any sense and retained their ethnicity and even culture, so long as it was not religious in nature and contradict their newfound faith. He strongly asserts that “this distinctive early Christian group identity is perhaps the earliest attempt to articulate what moderns would recognize as a corporate religious identity that is distinguishable from, and not a corollary of, one’s family, civic, or ethnic connection.”[9]
In Chapter 4, Hurtado explore how uniquely integrated writings from the emerging Christian faith were being read as part of the so-called “Old Testament” (i.e. Hebrew Scriptures). He writes “approximately the mid-second century, and quite possibly earlier, letters of Paul and multiple Gospels as well were being read as scripture in many churches along with the “Old Testament” writings that were also accepted as scripture in the synagogue.”[10] Its use and application was unparalleled in the ancient world. The growth of works that would emerge outside of the scriptural canon, were voluminous and “interesting innovations and adaptations of literary conventions in this textual output.”[11] The gospels acknowledged as a form of writing never before seen.[12] The attention to detail, widely intended use, and even their communal nature, was a remarkable feat in the ancient world, according to the author. Earlier Christianity preference for the codex, rather than the scroll, was another important distinction[13]and pioneered the “scribal practice of writing certain words in a distinctive abbreviated way.”[14]
Finally, in Chapter 5, Hurtado focuses on the Christian lifestyle, citing several points of difference they had with the Greco-Roman world. He notes that “only collective refusal to engage in infant exposure in the first three centuries AD, was among Jews and then also early Christians,”[15] objection to public violence and its relationship to entertainment,[16] tensions with family and friends in their newfound faith, how Christian theology insisted on “shaping the everyday behavior of believers, [17] and “the topic of sex and marriage… [which] formed such a large area of concern in early Christian texts.”[18] He stresses the “social complexity”[19] of Christianity, and succinctly surmises “Christians of whatever social position were well aware of the behavioral demands made on all others in whatever social position… [t]his surely reinforced a sense of collective behavioral responsibility.”[20] He insists that as a religious collective, one that transcended distinctions that often precluded the growth of such a religious movement, the Christian faith was one that not only challenged cultural and social norms, but sought to influence it, so to conform it in such a way to show that it was unlike any way of thinking that had arrived in the Greco-Roman world.
In the conclusion, Hurtado conveys his hope that “we who are so very conscious of our own time will perceive better the importance and influence of this remarkable religious movement of the ancient Roman world.”[21] He ends with two appendixes, one being the history of early Christianity in scholarly perspective and the other, an index of ancient sources.
Analysis of its Strengths and Weaknesses
Chapter 1 was a standard, yet helpful survey of the dominant voices that the Christian faith encountered in the first century and was a strong start. Its weakness however, was that it seems disproportional in its analysis and while accepting that the book was focusing on Christianity’s place in the Greco-Roman world, it would have been good to have read primary sources from a Jewish perspective. We hear from Pliny, Galen, Marcus Aurelius, etc. as examples of whose writings critically addressed the rise of Christianity, but other than Saul and passing references to the Pharisees, there is not much. Even if some of these voices were preserved later, it might have been good to hear some (i.e., Josephus, Talmud, etc).
A great strength in Chapter 2 was how Hurtado challenged one’s understanding of religion and how today, it has drifted from its historical understanding. As he notes,
there were several important components of what we would call “religion” in the ancient world that were missing in early Christian groups, which also made early Christianity a very different kind of religion. There were no images of their deity, no Christian altars or sacrifices, these ubiquitously essential in religious life throughout the Roman world. There was no Christian priesthood either, at least for the first couple of centuries or so, and no temples or shrines. The absence of these things definitely made early Christianity odd as a religious movement in that time.[22]
His commentary on how religion was part of everyday life grounded the readers understanding on how supremely different our approach to religion is today. There was however, weakness in the chapter. His comments on the uniqueness on the exclusive and transcendent nature of YHWH needed further exploration, particularly in how Yeshua was understood as being one with God. Richard Bauckham, in Jesus and the God of Israel, brilliantly explores the way early Christians came to understand the Messiah as God and the way this related to Jewish monotheism. He revisits this thinking later,[23] but not enough as is needed. Secondly, Hurtado comes from a line of scholarship that sees Christianity as being so new, so as to be separate from its Hebraic heritage. This is troublesome, as it does not account for the fact that what the Greek Scriptures (NT) taught, was a Christocentric clarification and enlargement of what had been true for millennia according to redeemed Israel. Christianity was not a new religion. It is neither a hybrid. When he remarks that “the Jesus-movement [i]s a novel “mutation” in ancient Jewish tradition,”[24]this is not helpful either. It is rather, the continuation of the faith birthed in the opening books of the Tanakh. It was an ancient faith, which through a renewal of covenant through the death of a prophesized Messiah, grafted redeemed Gentiles from the nations into an already establish covenantal community, and enlarged the commonwealth and its teachings on who YHWH was and how to live according to His will. As such, his continued distinction between what the Jews believed and practiced and what the Christian believes and practiced, is not helpful, in that, much of what he highlights as being “distinctive, even odd, in the cultural environment” in the ancient world, is evidenced throughout the Tanakh and by extension, the redeemed Israel. Chapter 3 was strong in this sense in that it explored a way of life that had been widely practised among Israel for centuries and was now being witnessed on a “global” (cf. Greco-Roman) scene. I appreciated how, at times, Hurtado referenced the importance of kashrut, even if unintentional.
Hurtado does not accredit redeemed Israel, what many have mislabelled as the “Jewish” faith, the importance it deserves in regards to Christianity. Few scholars have. Yeshua and the apostle Paul never implied that what they were teaching replaced or superseded what had come before them. What they were teaching was a renewed and enlarged approach to what had always been believed, taught and practiced by the assembly of YHWH. They condemned additions, subtractions, and interpretations to Scripture while correcting and complimenting what YHWH had instructed from the beginning and through subsequent progressive revelation. So, to give an example, the way of life of Christians explored in Chapter 5, had been the norm in the nation of redeemed Israel for centuries. One can debate the extent of application and understanding by national Israel as a whole or just the remnant, but regardless, these distinctions that Hurtado highlights in Christianity were always present in the assembly of YHWH. Furthermore, when he stresses that Christianity’s ethnic diversity separates it from its Jewish heritage, to do so, ignores the integration of redeemed Gentiles into the faith from the beginning, whether it be Abraham being called out of Ur, his interactions with Melchizedek, the “mixed multitude” that exoduses from Egypt, or those who embraced the faith, from Ruth and her marriage to Boaz to the Ninevites repentant before Jonah’s preaching. The commanded instructions that shaped the behaviour of the Christian movement, were the same as those that upheld that one “law [Torah] shall apply to the native as to the stranger who sojourns among you” (Exodus 12:49; cf. Leviticus 24:22; Numbers 15:15-16,29; Isaiah 56:6-8). This is not to state that what happened in the first century wasn’t unique, it was, and the large integration of Gentiles in the wake of Yeshua’s death and resurrection was cataclysmic, but Hurtado (like many scholars) either imply or explicitly convey an interpretation that creates a division between to all that what written, practiced, and experienced by the assembly of YHWH prior to the first century. Yes, what happened was incredible, but it was both the fulfilment and continuation of what has been prophesied and intended by YHWH from the beginning. The Greco-Roman world may have amusingly dismissed the nation of Israel and belief of the Jews, but when they were internationalized and no longer seen as ethnocentric in nature, the Greek and Roman took notice. As such, it would be refreshing to see this to occur in future scholarship, so not to diminish the distinctness of Christianity’s Hebraic heritage. The distinctiveness that Hurtado constantly returns to was also present in redeemed Israel and in YHWH’s adherents; it was only now, being acknowledged by the Greco-Roman world because of its adoption by redeemed Gentiles of different ethnicities and levels of society.
Shifting direction, Chapter 4 was exceptional in that it focused on the first-century community’s means of preserving and writing texts. This was indeed, distinctive and original to the movement. This was by far, one of the strongest chapters and worth the book alone.
In conclusion, Hurtado’s Destroyer of the Gods is a recommend work that, while further cultivating a problematic separation of Christianity from its distinct Hebraic heritage, remains predominately respectful to the source material. It is easy to read, striking a balance between the lay reader and scholar, while also being well structured in how he explores the components of what made Christianity a distinct and unique religious movement in the ancient world. He provides a healthy number of sources, both primary and secondary, to help us understand how his thinking was shaped and justification of conclusions reached.
[1] Larry W. Hurtado, Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016), xi.
[2] Ibid., 20.
[3] Ibid., 40-41.
[4] Ibid., 49.
[5] Ibid., 53.
[6] Ibid., 56.
[7] Ibid., 83.
[8] Ibid., 89.
[9] Ibid., 104.
[10] Ibid., 114.
[11] Ibid., 119.
[12] Ibid., 121.
[13] Ibid., 133.
[14] Ibid., 138.
[15] Ibid., 146.
[16] Ibid., 149.
[17] Ibid., 154.
[18] Ibid., 160.
[19] Ibid., 176.
[20] Ibid., 181.
[21] Ibid., 188.
[22] Ibid., 58.
[23] Ibid., 73.
[24] Ibid., 68.