DOI:10.1111/j.1741-2005.2011.01447.

Early Christian Worship and the Historical

Argument for Jesus Resurrection
Glenn Siniscalchi

Abstract

Apologists such as N.T. Wright, Gerald OCollins, Richard

Swinburne, William Lane Craig, and Gary Habermas have appealed
to the post-mortem appearances, the empty tomb, and the origin of
the disciples belief in the resurrection to lend credibility to Jesus
resurrection. The earliest and most pertinent evidence concerning the
earliest churchs worship and devotional life has not been utilized to
defend the resurrection (or to defend the historicity of the evidence
itself).
On the other hand, scholars of early worship such as Richard
Bauckham, Larry Hurtado, and James Dunn have not seen their work
as having apologetic import. This essay seeks to bridge the gap
between these research paradigms and show that they can only com-
plement each other for the better, especially for the sake of apologetic
purposes.

Keywords
apologetics, early Christian worship, faith and reason, evidence, Larry
Hurtado, Richard Bauckham, N.T. Wright, Gerald OCollins

The newest quest for the historical Jesus has ushered in a strong wave
of apologetic writings defending the historicity of Jesus resurrection.
The main evidence considered usually consists of the post-mortem
appearances, the empty tomb, and the origin of the earliest disciples
belief in Jesus resurrection. For the most part, skeptics of Christianity
have taken these reported facts seriously and try to account for them
in purely naturalistic terms.1
Another salient component of earliest Christianity is the churchs
worship and devotional life. This phenomenon has been outlined
and explained by brilliant scholars such as Larry Hurtado, Richard
Bauckham, and James Dunn. And yet, most apologists in the newest

1
James Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit, (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), p. 97.


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2 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection

quest have neglected to interact with the pioneering work being re-
searched in this area. What is equally surprising is the general silence
of Hurtado and his collaborators to spell out the apologetic potential
of their own published works.2 I submit that earliest Christian wor-
ship and devotion should be used by apologists to lend additional
credibility to Jesus resurrection. Scholars working in early Christian
worship rarely mention the antecedent causes that were responsible
for bringing these practices into being, and their work has profound
implications for historical apologetics.
This essay will outline the apologetic work of N.T. Wright,
Gerald OCollins, Gary Habermas, William Lane Craig, and Richard
Swinburne. These scholars have not seriously entertained the most
noteworthy features of liturgical worship as evidence for the resur-
rection. On a more positive note, I will explain how early Christian
worship should be utilized by them.

I. Apologists in Defense of the Resurrection

Apologists play a significant role in helping unbelievers to overcome

intellectual obstacles set in the path of faith. I. Howard Marshall
recognizes the need of historical apologetics: Why, then, should it
be thought odd to offer to twentieth century audiences the historical
backing that they need in order to know whether they should commit
themselves in faith to the Jesus who is subject of Christian preaching?
Modern people want to know if Jesus really existed. They want to
know if he was the kind of person that the Gospels make him out
to be. They want to know if he died and rose from the dead. They
want to know whether his general manner of life supports the claims
made on his behalf by Christians. And they are entitled to receive
answers to these questions.3 Let us now turn to the work of some
prominent apologists and discuss their contributions to resurrection
studies. None of these scholars have seriously taken earliest Christian
worship as evidence in support of Jesus resurrection.
(1) N.T. Wrights first major contribution consists in his discus-
sion of the historical and religious backgrounds of pagan and Jewish
thought during the time of Jesus.4 Jews at the time held that (1) all
people, or a least a large group of the Jewish nation, would be raised
from the dead together (not one individual apart from the rest); (2) the
resurrection would occur at the eschaton, never in the middle of

2
Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), p. 28, 29.
3
I Howard Marshall, I Believe in the Historical Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1977), p. 83.
4
N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2003).

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Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection 3

history (as in the case of Jesus); (3) none of the risen would play a
role in the divine judgment (according to the Christians, however, the
Risen One was the judge of all humankind); (4) the Messiah would
not die, much less rise from the dead. Nor did they think that (5)
God, or YHWH, would be raised from the dead in human form (cf.
2 Clement 1:1).
Conversely, the first Christians proclaimed very specific things
about Christs resurrection which was absent in Second Temple
Judaism. The Christians: (1) believed in a resurrected and crucified
rabbi, which was seen by Jews as a curse from God (cf. Deut 21:23);
(2) they claimed that the general resurrection had somehow already
begun (1 Cor. 15:2023); (3) they unanimously placed the resurrec-
tion at the center of their message, excluding all other views of the
afterlife (unlike the Jews, whose resurrection doctrine was periph-
eral and even debatable among other eschatological beliefs); (4) they
argued that the resurrected body was incorruptible and imperish-
able (unlike the Jews, who never commented on the nature of the
risen body); (5) they spoke of Gods Kingdom as having comeand
still having to comea very nuanced position to be in; (6) and they
propagated the good news to all people, regardless of race, gender, or
social statussomething the Jews did not feel the need to do, either
before or during the rise of Christianity. All of these modifications
prompt Wright to ask: what could have caused these modifications?
Wright therefore starts from the fact of the earliest disciples belief
in the Risen Jesus. He then argues for the historicity of the empty
tomb and post-mortem appearances on the basis of this first fact.5
The evidence, in his words, may be in the same sort of category, of
historical probability so high as to be virtually certain, as the death
of Augustus in AD 14 or the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. For him
the evidence is as watertight as one is likely to find.6 Throughout
his writing career, Wright has held that Jesus resurrection is also
the best explanation of the reported facts.7 Because of the influ-
ence of dialectical and existential theology, many theologians explain
the resurrection in mere eschatological terms. But Wright has again
reminded us of the physical nature of the resurrection body.8 This

5
For a thorough analysis of Wrights argument, see William Lane Craig, Wright and
Crossan on the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus, in Robert B. Stewart, (ed), The
Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright in Dialogue (Minneapolis,
MN: Fortress, 2006), pp. 139148.
6
Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, p. 710, cf. 707.
7
Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, pp. 716, 717. See also N.T. Wright and
Marcus J. Borg, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (New York: Harper Collins, 1999),
p. 124.
8
Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, pp. 477478.

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4 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection

counts as his second contribution. Wrights point is confirmed by the

Jewish scholar, Pinchas Lapide.9
Through it all, however, Wright has not exploited the fact of earliest
Christian worship. Relevant are Hurtados comments on his argument:
the most remarkable innovation in first-century Christian circles was
the inclusion of the risen/exalted Jesus as recipient of cultic devotion.
For historical analysis, this is perhaps the most puzzling and most
notable feature of the earliest Christian treatment of the figure of
Jesus. Yet Wright has scarcely anything to say about this, and I find
that curious.10
(2) Gerald OCollins provides a comprehensive defense of the
resurrection by presenting both historical evidence and human expe-
rience.11 Unlike their Protestant counterparts, OCollins and Catholic
theologians stress the need to develop ones interior dispositions
to adequately assess the biblical evidence. Avery Dulles, for in-
stance, stressed the importance of hope in resurrection apologetics.12
Pope Benedict XVI affirmed that a healthy and virtuous person will

9
Pinchas Lapide, The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective, trans. Wilhelm C.
Linss (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1982; reprint, Eugene, OR, Wipf and Stock, 2002),
pp. 130, 131. I cannot rid myself of the impression that some modern theologians are
ashamed of the material facticity of the resurrection. Their varying attempts at dehis-
toricizing the Easter experience which give the lie to all four evangelists are simply not
understandable to me in any other way. Indeed, the four authors of the Gospels definitely
compete with one another in illustrating the tangible, substantial dimension of this resur-
rection explicitly. Often it seems as if renowned New Testament scholars in our days want
to insert a kind of ideological or dogmatic curtain between the pre-Easter and the risen
Jesus to protest the latter against any kind of contamination by earthly three-dimensionality.
However, for the first Christians who thought, believed, and hoped in a Jewish manner,
the immediate historicity was not only a part of that happening but the indispensable
precondition for the recognition of its significance for salvation. For all these Christians
who believe in the incarnation (something I am unable to do) but have difficulty with the
historically understood resurrection, the word of Jesus of the blind guides, straining out
a gnat and swallowing a camel (Matt. 23:24) probably applies.
10
Larry W. Hurtado, Jesus Resurrection in the Early Christian Texts: An Engagement
with N.T. Wright, Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 3.2 (2005), p. 205.
11
Gerald OCollins, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Valley Forge, PA: Judson, 1973),
pp. 6376.
12
Avery Dulles, The Survival of Dogma, (New York: Doubleday, 1971), pp. 41, 42,
6075, 202: I do not propose an apologetics of hope as self-sufficient, still less as a
substitute for all other forms of apologetics. To show the full credibility of the Christian
message it is necessary, today as always, to appeal to the data of history. The story of Jesus
of Nazareth cannot be by-passed, for Jesus himself is the most striking sign of the truth
of his own message. The Resurrection of Jesus stands as the most powerful expression
of Gods omnipotent redemptive love. But the Resurrection remains largely inaccessible
to the historian, if he follows the conventional methods of scientific research. He has no
way of dealing with such a unique phenomenon, in which the barriers between time and
eternity dissolve and the end of all history is anticipated. To accept the reality of this event
one must already be, or at least one must be disposed to become, a man of transcendental
hope. . .. Thus the apologetics of history, as it deals with the Resurrection, interlocks with
the apologetics of hope. What one makes of the narratives depends in great part on how
one answers the question: What may I hope for?

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Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection 5

attain the correct biblical hermeneutic on the resurrection.13 This

would include theological virtues such as faith and love. OCollins
himself urges: Love, for instance, facilitates knowledge, just as
knowing makes it possible to love someone or something already
known. This holds true also of historical knowledge.14
Like the other apologists surveyed here, OCollins defends the ap-
pearances of Jesus and the empty tomb. He also appeals to the rapid
rise of the Christianity.15 If it could be shown that the Gospels are
primarily legendary, then the apologists task would be severely un-
dercut. By contrast, OCollins insists that When. . . Jesus [becomes]
the object of critical historical research, the Synoptic Gospels, it
can be argued, are reasonably reliable in allowing us to reconstruct
historically something about Jesus.16 That the Gospel writers de-
scribe, unwittingly in kaleidoscopic fashion, what they think really
happened to Jesus cannot be denied.17 The fact of the empty tomb,
along with the post-mortem appearances, developed as separate tradi-
tions in the earliest communities; therefore, they should be indepen-
dently analyzed. Further, there is sleight historical evidence in favor
of skeptical positions.18 The biblical evidence is sufficient to con-
found the idea the disciples more-or-less-thought-their-way-through-
this-to-come-up-with-the-Resurrection.19
OCollins undoubtedly takes human experience into account. This
emphasis counts as his major contribution to the literature. If God
created persons with the cognitive faculties necessary for believing
in Christ, then there must be carved out space, as it were, in human
minds for such a belief. In OCollins words:
Only those who have experienced death in some form can know what
resurrection means. Loved ones may die. Episodes of sorrow, guilt,
tragedy or separation may occur which seem far worse than physical
death itself. Not only individuals but also racial and religious groups
and even whole nations know only too often in human oppression, fear-
ful social and political convulsions, systematic terror and catastrophic
defeat in war. When human beings are raised from such deadly

13
Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, trans. J.R. Foster (San Francisco:
Ignatius, 1990), pp. 234, 235.
14
Gerald OCollins, Easter Faith: Believing in the Risen Jesus (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist,
2003), p. 32, cf. 33.
15
Ibid., 40.
16
Gerald OCollins, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus
(Oxford: Oxford University, 1995), p. 51.
17
Gerald OCollins, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Some Contemporary Issues
(Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1993), pp. 211.
18
Gerald OCollins, Jesus Risen: An Historical, Fundamental and Systematic Exami-
nation of Christs Resurrection (New York: Paulist, 1987), p. 108.
19
Gerald OCollins, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Some Contemporary Issues,
pp. 16, 18.

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6 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection

episodes, their situation can allow them to discern what it means to

say Jesus was raised from the dead. The apostolic testimony to the
resurrection will then be heard in a personal context of life after death,
joy after sorrow, freedom after slavery, forgiveness after guilt, safety
after terrifying danger, reunion after separation or whatever form this
reversal takes.
Our appreciation of the resurrection message may be rooted in a sense
of the discrepancy which exists between what we expect as valuable for
ourselves and what we actually experience. After events characterized
by unhappiness, deprivation of personal freedom and failure, we can
meet positive, if partial, experiences of happiness, freedom and success.
Can we retain, repeat and above all enlarge these experiences? This
quest for wholeness both illuminates and facilitates belief in Christs
victory over death. Faith in his resurrection entails expectations of our
final happiness, complete success, and ultimate freedom to be found
with him.20
Christianity is the religion that every person is designed to believe
in. Though human experience is included by OCollins, the earliest
manifestations of Christian worship are not taken into consideration
and then approached as an historical phenomenon per se. Rather, ex-
perience is utilized to help Christians (and unbelievers) to understand
the continuity and plausibility of Gods original revelation and its
relevance in the here-and-now.21
(3) Gary Habermas has developed what is called the minimal
facts approach22 to defending the resurrection. In this view there
are twelve widely accepted facts furnished by the majority of New
Testament scholars:
(1) Jesus died due to the rigors of crucifixion and (2) was buried.
(3) Jesus death caused the disciples to despair and lose hope.
(4) Although not as frequently recognized, many scholars hold that
Jesus was buried in a tomb that was discovered to be empty just a few
days later.
Critical scholars even agree that (5) at this time the disciples had real
experiences that they believed were literal appearances of the risen
Jesus. Because of these experiences, (6) the disciples were transformed
from doubters who were afraid to identify themselves with Jesus to
bold proclaimers of his death and resurrection, even being willing to

20
Gerald OCollins, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Valley Forge, PA: Judson, 1973),
pp. 70, 71.
21
Cf. Gerald OCollins, Retrieving Fundamental Theology: Three Styles of Contempo-
rary Theology (New York: Paulist, 1993), pp. 8797.
22
For representative texts, see The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of
Christ (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996); The Risen Jesus and Future Hope, (Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2003); Explaining Away Jesus Resurrection: The Recent Revival of
Hallucination Theories, Christian Research Journal, 23 (2001), pp. 2631; Experiences
of the Risen Jesus: The Foundational Historical Issue in the Early Proclamation of the
Resurrection, Dialog: A Journal of Theology, 45.3 (Fall 2006), pp. 288297.

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Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection 7

die for this belief. (7) This message was central in the early church
preaching and (8) was especially proclaimed in Jerusalem, where Jesus
had died shortly before.
As a result of this message, (9) the church was born and grew, (10)
with Sunday as the primary day of worship. (11) James, the brother of
Jesus and a skeptic, was converted to the faith when he also believed
he saw the resurrected Jesus. (12) A few years later Paul the persecutor
of Christians was also converted by an experience that he, similarly,
believed to be an appearance of the risen Jesus.23
Habermas wants apologists to begin with the conclusions set by the
scholarly consensus: one of my interests is to ascertain if we can
detect some widespread directions in the contemporary discussions
where are most recent scholars heading on these issues? Of course,
the best way to do this is to comb through the literature and attempt
to provide an accurate assessment.24
The consensus is known from the conclusions set by most scholars
who study the subject, regardless if they are conservatives or liberals.
He explains how he is able to determine what counts as the consensus
in his ambitious article: Resurrection Research from 1975 to the
Present: What are Critical Scholars Saying? Says Habermas: Since
1975, more than 1400 scholarly publications on the death, burial,
and resurrection of Jesus have appeared. Over the last five years, I
have tracked these texts, which were written in German, French,
and English. Well over 100 subtopics are addressed in the literature,
almost all of which I have examined in detail.25 By cataloguing the
major trends in the field, Habermas wants everyone in the dialogue
and/or debate to begin with the same basic evidence. Habermas is
exceptionally skilled at classifying scholarly viewpoints and showing
where they fall in proximity to other positions on the spectrum of
resurrection research.
As in the case with OCollins and Wright, Habermas shows no
concern to use early Christian worship as evidence for Christs
resurrection. When evidence outside of the empty tomb and ap-
pearances is actually invoked, he would rather stress the disciples
cognitive beliefs about the Risen Jesus rather than consult liturgical
practices and other forms of devotion.
(4) William Lane Craig has included conclusions reached in the
philosophy of history and historiography. Similar to Habermas, he
argues that the majority of scholars who study the subject argue

23
Gary R. Habermas and Antony G.N. Flew, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?: The
Resurrection Debate, Terry L. Miethe, (ed) (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987),
pp. 19, 20.
24
Gary R. Habermas, Resurrection Research from 1975 to the Present: What are
Critical Scholars Saying? Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 3.2 (January
2005), pp. 135153
25
Ibid., 135.

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8 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection

that four facts need to be accounted for: (1) the burial of Jesus;
(2) the discovery of Jesus empty tomb by a group of his women
followers; (3) the post-mortem appearances; and (4), the origin of
the disciples belief in the resurrection despite their predisposition to
the contrary.26 Craig not only posits these four reported facts, but he
also gives arguments in support of them.
Craig then argues that, after various naturalistic hypotheses have
been tried and found wanting by filtering them through standard his-
toriographical principles, the resurrection hypothesis remains the best
explanation of the reported facts. In order for him to make such a
claim, he utilizes the work of C. Behan McCullagha professional
philosopher of history who has no specific concerns about the his-
torical credibility of Jesus resurrection.27 McCullaghs has explained
and justified the traditional criteria that professional historians out-
side the guild of biblical scholars have used to assess the strength
of competing causal theories in history: explanatory scope, explana-
tory power, plausibility, whether the theory is ad hoc, and whether
it is consonant with other acceptable beliefs. With these principles
in mind, Craig has consistently and convincingly demonstrated the
inadequacies of naturalistic explanations of the data.
Craig has also written the best defense of the empty tomb in
recent times.28 His talent of debating the resurrection with hard-
headed skeptics on college campuses in North America and Europe
has withstood the test of time, and it testifies to the strength of
the rational apologists case.29 Michael Liconas published works
show the influence of Craig and Habermas.30 Not to be overlooked,
Licona shows even more familiarity with the philosophy of history
and historiography than his two mentors.
Like Habermas, OCollins and Wright, Craig appeals to the origin
of the disciples belief in the risen Christ, but again this does not
necessarily include the Christians earliest practices. Cognitive beliefs

26
William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd ed.
(Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), pp. 350400. See also Assessing the New Testament
Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus, 3rd ed., Studies in the Bible and
Early Christianity 16 (Toronto: Edwin Mellen, 2004).
27
C. Behan McCullagh, Justifying Historical Descriptions (Cambridge: Cambridge
University, 1984); idem, The Logic of History: Putting Postmodernism in Perspective
(New York: Routledge, 2003).
28
William Lane Craig, The Historicity of the Empty Tomb of Jesus, New Testament
Studies, 31 (1985), pp. 3967.
29
Paul Copan and Ronald Tacelli, (eds), Jesus Resurrection: Fact or Figment?: A De-
bate Between William Lane Craig and Gerd Ludemann (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity,
2000); Paul Copan, (ed), Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?: A Debate Between William
Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998).
30
Michael Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2010). See also Michael Licona and Gary Habermas,
The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2004).

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Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection 9

are used to demonstrate that it would not make sense for these beliefs
to originate in either a Jewish or Greco-Roman religious matrix. Only
the resurrection hypothesis can satisfactorily account for the very fact
of the disciples belief in it. By including the work of Bauckham,
Hurtado and Dunn, however, Craigs case can only be strengthened
and made more persuasive to unbelievers and others opponents of
Christian faith.
(5) Richard Swinburnes first prong in the overall argument for
the resurrection consists of the pertinent reasons that can be utilized
apart from the influence of Gods revelation to show that God is
the kind of God who would want to become a human and do the
types of things that Jesus Christ would do.31 Swinburnes contribution
therefore consists of those a priori reasons for expecting God to
become incarnate (and be raised from the dead) in human history.
A priori reasons arise from the very nature of God and from the
general condition of the human race why we should expect them to
be true.32 While it was not necessary for God to become human
and be raised from the dead, there are nevertheless good reasons to
think God would do such a thing. I have argued that, if there is such
a God, there are a priori reasons. . . for supposing that he. . . would
act in history to do the things which Christianity claims that he has
done.33
One would be hard-pressed to establish anything about Jesus or
his resurrection without first establishing these a priori reasons for
expecting God to make a personal entry into human history. To be
sure, there is no contradiction in proposing an intellectually satisfying
alternative to the resurrection hypothesis on historical grounds and
maintaining the truth of theism. Thus Swinburnes work is hugely
important. Apologists must pay attention to these a priori reasons,
laying out a refurbished case for Easter Faith. The traditional case
for Christian theism must become more forceful: If God were so cold
and detached from humanity, it is difficult to conceive why he would
have created the universe in the first place.
After Swinburnes a priori reasons have been outlined and ex-
plained, the discussion turns to what Swinburne dubs the a posteriori
evidence for Christian faith. The a posteriori evidence consists of
the traditional historical evidences for the resurrection: the empty
tomb and appearances. He concludes that the a posteriori evidence
for Jesus resurrection fits in with the a priori reasons better than
any other evidences: Alternative hypotheses have always seemed to

31
Richard Swinburne, The Resurrection of God Incarnate (Oxford: Oxford University,
2003).
32
Richard Swinburne, Was Jesus God? (Oxford: Oxford University, 2008), p. 5.
33
Ibid., 83.

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10 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection

me to give far less satisfactory accounts of the historical evidence

than does the traditional account.34
Swinburne has indeed appealed to the origins of the Eucharist and
the shift from celebrating the Sabbath on Saturday to the first day
of the week,35 but these two features remain shortsighted in light
of the holistic picture painted by Bauckham, Hurtado, and Dunn. To
these scholars we must now turn. The point in summarizing the work
of these apologists is to highlight their contributions and show that
they have not considered early Christian worship as evidence.

II. Worship and Earliest Devotion to Jesus

Larry Hurtado, Richard Bauckham and James Dunn are some of the
most prominent scholars of early Christian worship. Many significant
modifications from Second Temple Judaism to earliest Christianity
are seen in the early patterns and various expressions of worship.
One might ask what is responsible for bringing about these huge
shifts.
First, various designations are given to the Risen Christ, which is
intermixed in different ways:36 Christ Jesus, Jesus Christ, God and
Savior, etc. Further, many terms in early Christianity are taken from
pagan socio-religious contexts and assigned with a new depth of
meaning: lord, church, and baptism would count as examples.37 The
infusion of new meaning provided an inner-rationale and reminder
for the Christians of the importance of their gatherings.
Another reason to believe Christians worshiped the Risen Christ
is seen by the doxologies used in reference to him.38 Their worship
drove the earliest believers to search the Hebrew Scriptures to find
new insights and other answers in light of their newfound faith.39
This was known as charismatic exegesis, and it usually did not occur
unless they experienced something profound.
The New Testament writers presupposed Jewish monotheism
(Rom. 3:2830; 1 Cor. 8:16; John 10:30), but they infused belief
in one God with a definitive, new meaning at an exceptionally early
date. Says Bauckham: With the inclusion of Jesus in the unique iden-
tity of YHWH, the faith of the Shema is affirmed and maintained,

34
Richard Swinburne, Evidence for the Resurrection, in Stephen T. Davis, Daniel
Kendall, and Gerald OCollins, (eds), The Resurrection: An Interdisciplinary Symposium
on the Resurrection of Jesus (Oxford: Oxford University, 1997), p. 201.
35
Swinburne, The Resurrection of God Incarnate, pp. 163170.
36
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, p. 118. Cf. 176, 180, 406.
37
Larry W. Hurtado, At the Origins of Christian Worship: The Context and Character
of Earliest Christian Devotion. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 2, 53, 55.
38
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, p. 152. Cf. 615.
39
Ibid., 73, 74, 184, 378, 388, 389, 401, 410, 564578, 651.

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Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection 11

but everything the Shema requires of Gods people is now focused

on Jesus. Exclusive devotion is now given to Jesus, but Jesus does
not thereby replace or compete with God the Father, since he him-
self belongs to the unique divine identity.40 Moreover, the highest
Christology was accompanied by a particular pattern of liturgical
worship.41
As Christian worship spread across the Mediterranean, the earliest
believers may have borrowed from pagan thought in certain ways be-
cause of its linguistic utility to articulate specific theological concepts,
but the essence of their devotion was fundamentally different from
that of pagan religion. According to Bauckham, Hellenistic Christians
were not as concerned to develop this Christology as much as they
sought to transpose it into a conceptual framework more concerned
with the Greek philosophical categories of essence and nature.42 This
is exhibited by the earliest evidence (Pauls writings) which emphat-
ically rejects pagan religion along with the corresponding exclusive
worship of the one, true God.43
Unlike Judaism, Christians held that redemption was not found
through obedience to Torah. Rather, all people, regardless of race,
gender, or ethnicity, could find salvation by accepting Jesus. The
Torah is thereby shown not to be the basis of redemption, and so
it cannot be made obligatory for Gentile Christians.44 Likewise,
Hurtado lists six cultic actions in earliest Christian worship that dis-
tinguish it from Second-Temple Jewish worship. Although there is
some precedent and analogy between the two, the earliest believers
took worship one step further by giving Jesus cultic devotionthe
best indication that Jesus was attributed with divinity. These mu-
tations, Hurtados words, are a direct outgrowth from, and indeed
a variety of, the ancient Jewish tradition. But an earlier stage it
exhibited a sudden and significant difference in character from Jewish
devotion.45
These practices include the following: (1) Prayer was offered to
God through Jesus Christ (e.g., Rom 1:8); (2) In the Churchs rituals,
Jesus was invoked and confessed (this implies that Jesus was given a
divine status); (3) Jesus name was invoked in the ritual of baptism;
(4) The association of Jesus with the Lords Supper connotes that

40
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on
the New Testaments Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008),
p. 106.
41
Ibid., 127151.
42
Ibid., x.
43
Larry W. Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?: Historical Questions
About Earliest Devotion to Jesus, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), pp. 4245.
44
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, pp. 132, 133. Cf. 165.
45
Larry W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish
Monotheism, 2d. ed. (New York: T & T Clark, 2003), p. 99.

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12 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection

he was a living divine power who own the meal and presides over
it. This means that he was seen a as Lord of the entire Christian
congregation. This was striking at the time, especially considering
that it was celebrated in contradistinction to the cult meals of the
pagan gods in Roman religion; (5) In the early churchs hymns, the
Christians literally sang to Jesus by using Old Testament Psalms,
interpreted Christologically; (6) The use of prophetic speech in the
context of Christian worship was seen and experienced as the voice
of the risen Jesus.46
Noting that there is nothing compelling in Second Temple Judaism
to compel the first Christians to fabricate these cultic actions (though
Hurtado argues that the Jewish veneration of the patriarchs, heroic
figures, principal angels, and personified attributes of God assisted
the first believers with the conceptual categories needed to verbally
articulate what happened to Jesus),47 Hurtado says early devotion was
characteristically expressed in terms of Jesus special relationship to
God, and in conjunction with Gods action in the world.48 In the
earliest evidence we have (Pauls letters), Jesus holds a status of
divinity, or at least participating in divinity.49 This is attested by
the belief in Jesus pre-existence, which denotes the fact that Jesus
origin and meaning lie exclusively in God, and that his appearance
in history corresponds to his role in the redemption of the human
race.50
Contending that there are two ways to interpret the pertinent evi-
dence from the Second Temple Jewish era, Bauckham argues that the
Christians earliest beliefs about Jesus were not possible by apply-
ing to Jesus a Jewish category of semi-divine intermediary status, but
by identifying Jesus directly with the one God of Israel, including
Jesus in the unique identity of this one God.51 He analyzes bibli-
cal passages such as Deuteronomy 6:46 and the Decalogue. Second
Temple Jews were strictly monotheistic well before the origins of the
Christian movement. Thus, the inclusion of Jesus along with God
cries out for some sort of extraordinary explanation.
At the time of Jesus, Jews understood God as the exclusive Creator
and Ruler of the universe. Thus, Bauckham: To our question, In
what did Second Temple Judaism consider the uniqueness of the one
God to consist, what distinguished God as unique from all other re-
ality, including beings worshipped as gods by Gentiles?, the answer
given again and again, in a wide variety of Second Temple Jewish

46
Ibid., 100114.
47
Ibid., 1792, 123, 124.
48
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, p. 52.
49
Ibid., 104.
50
Ibid., 126. Cf. 118126.
51
Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, p. 3.

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Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection 13

literature, is that the only true God, YHWH, the God of Israel, is
the sole Creator of all things and sole Ruler of all things.52 As in
the case of Hurtado, Jesus is suddenly seen as the creator along with
God.53 Bauckham insists:
if we attend carefully and accurately, on the one hand, to the ways
in which Second Temple Judaism characterized the unique identity
of the one and only God and, on the other hand, to what New
Testament writers say about Jesus, it becomes abundantly clear that
New Testament writers include Jesus in the unique identity of the
one God. They do so carefully, deliberately, consistently and com-
prehensively, by including Jesus in precisely those divine character-
istics which for Second Temple Judaism distinguished the one God
as unique. All New Testament Christology is, in this sense, very high
Christology, stated in the highest terms available in first-century Jewish
theology.54
On the one hand, Second Temple Jews viewed YHWH as the only
sovereign being. On the other hand, Christians saw the Exalted Je-
sus as sovereign.55 While Jews held that YHWH was higher than
all angelic beings, the earliest Christians affirmed that Jesus was
higher than all angels.56 While YHWH has a unique divine name
in the Old Testament, so Christians also give Jesus the same unique
name. Lastly, Jews held that God was to receive exclusive worship,
not worship alongside of other pagan deities.57 The first Christians
exclusively worshipped Jesus. No other gods in the Greco-Roman
world deserved honorable worship alongside of him.
But James Dunn is quick to add that the Scriptural witness in
support of worshipping Jesus is unable to point us in any conclusive
direction: the use of proskynein in the sense of offering worship to
Jesus seems to be rather limited.58 With respect to the early churchs
prayer, hymns, sacred times, places, meals, and people, the data is
more complex and the implications not so clearly drawn.59 For him
the whole notion of worshipping Jesus is misleading. The question
is not so much Did the first Christians worship Jesus? as much as
it should be Was early worship possible without Jesus? Worship,
therefore, was not possible without including Jesus and God in the
power of the Spirit: Worship of Jesus that is not worship of God

52
Ibid., 9; cf. 10, 11
53
Ibid., 87.
54
Ibid., 32.
55
Ibid., 23.
56
Ibid., 23, 24.
57
Ibid., p. 84.
58
James Dunn, The First Christians Worship Jesus?: The New Testament Evidence,
(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2010), p. 12.
59
Ibid., 39.

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14 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection

through Jesus, or, more completely, worship of God through Jesus

and in the Spirit, is not Christian worship.60 In Dunns reading,
then, the worship of Christ at the expense of including God the
Father and the Holy Spirit is tantamount to committing Jesus-olatry.
Although the first believers did not explicitly formulate a doctrine of
the Trinity, it was this novel understanding that was hugely significant
and complements the other modifications mentioned by Bauckham
and Hurtado.
Hence, the single biggest distinction in earliest Christianity was its
insistence on worshipping a person who once walked the earth. This
in itself was a huge mutation and also has no parallel, let alone lin-
guistic parallel, in Judaism. They included the teachings of his earthly
ministry. This was probably based on their innovative theology of
Jesus resurrection body (i.e., the same body that died was the same
body that rose from the grave). The risen Jesus is the same Jesus
that the disciples knew during his life: in what became the dominant
view, Jesus real human and historical reality remained as crucial as
the heavenly glory that he was believed to share.61 Moreover, there
is hardly any indication that there was any controversy or serious
variance about this exalted place of Jesus among the various other
Christian circles with which he was acquainted.62 The variation in
expression still assumed that there were basics.63
Indeed, Judaism forbade the apotheosis or the divinization of hu-
man persons. This makes Christian devotion all the more remark-
able given that Christianity was seen as an early sect of Judaism.64
Bauckham complements Hurtado: When New Testament Christology
is read with this Jewish theological context in mind [i.e. a strictly
monotheistic context], it becomes clear that, from the earliest post-
Easter beginnings of Christology onwards, early Christians included
Jesus, precisely and unambiguously, within the unique identity of the
one true God of Israel. They did so by including Jesus in the unique,
defining characteristics by which Jewish monotheism identified God
as unique.65 According to Bauckham, we can safely surmise that
the Christology of the first Christians was already the highest Chris-
tology. Indeed, one should note the most significant difference be-
tween earliest Christianity and other contemporary religious groups:
the place of the exalted Jesus in the religious life, devotion, or piety
of its adherents.66

60
Ibid., 6.
61
Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?, 55.
62
Ibid., 135.
63
Ibid., 167, 173, 182, 183, 203, 215, 605.
64
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, pp. 91, 92.
65
Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, ix.
66
Hurtado, One God, One Lord, p. 99.

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Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection 15

Worship of Jesus was not in competition for the devotion given

to God, but both were included by believers.67 Although the first
Christians considered themselves strict monotheists, what made them
so different from the Jews was that they introduced a binitarian devo-
tional pattern directed to God and Christ alone. This was heretical in
Judaism because it contravened the prayers, hymns, and devotion re-
served for the God of biblical tradition. There is simply no analogy in
the Second-Temple period to accommodate this binitarian pattern of
worship. This innovation is another significant innovation in earliest
Christianity. In a similar vein, Christian devotion also placed strict
demands on converts to renounce all forms of pagan worship, de-
manding an exclusivist devotion to Christ and God.68 Thus Hurtado:
We cannot appreciate early Christian worship, unless we keep be-
fore our eyes the fact that for Gentile Christians it represented a
replacement cultus. It was at one and the same time both a religious
commitment and a renunciation, a stark and demanding devotional
stance with profound repercussions.69 This exclusivist approach ob-
ligated converts to abandon certain aspects of common life, and in
some cases this created tensions within their family life.70
The sustenance of the Christian understanding monotheism in the
face of the Roman religions was another striking feature. The wor-
ship of one God was at clearly at odds with the polytheistic belief
that the gods could be worshipped in any combination. Pagans could
not understand why they could not add worship to Jesus alongside
the worship of other gods.71 Since Christianity was one religion com-
peting in a marketplace of religions, and considering it had an exclu-
sivist stance, there must have been some other feature that made it
powerfully attractive to outsiders.72 Early worship attracted outsiders
because of the way in which it changed its adherents. Another reason
why it spread so quickly had to do with the adversarial encounter of
other religions which drove and shaped the movement.73 Martyrdom

67
Ibid., 100.
68
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, pp. 483, 484, 650.
69
Hurtado, At the Origins of Christian Worship, p. 4.
70
The Romans allowed for many different forms of religious expression. Thus, it was
unique for the Christians to enter the highly diverse and pious religious scene of the Roman
world and claim that all religions other than Christianity were illicit.
71
Hurtado, At the Origins of Christian Worship, p. 18. Cf. 39. Likewise with scant
basis are the occasional scholarly assertions of a trend or tendency toward monotheism
in the Roman period. To be sure, among some sophisticated writers in the ancient world
there were attempts to posit a unity behind the diversity of gods. But this is hardly
monotheism as we know it in classical forms of Judaism, Christianity or Islam, in which
one deity is worshipped to the exclusion of all others.
72
The quick success of Christianity partly depended on showing where pagan religious
devotion was in error. This, in turn, provided an opportunity to share the Christian message
of the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ.
73
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, pp. 77, 402.

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16 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection

was the most vivid form in which devotion to Jesus was expressed
in the earliest centuries.74 Dying for ones beliefs indicated to the
public on a large scale that some Christians were willing to go to
any length of penalty to remain faithful followers of Jesus. Of course,
this made outsiders curious and attracted them to investigate the new
Christian heresy.
Early Christian worship did not take place in decorative temples;
not did it consist of sacrifices made to God through the intercessions
of a hereditary priesthood:75 Along with the lack of temples or cult
images, Hurtado writes, the earliest Christians offered no sacrifices
to their God, and in this as well seemed to their pagan neighbors an
odd sort of religious group. Elsewhere, he says, Their lack of these
important normal components of religion is part of the reason why
some outsiders regarded Christian groups as more like philosophi-
cal associations than religious groups.76 Christian worship so unique
in the beginning in that it transcended the lines of differentiation
and marginalization operative in their life outside of the worship
setting.77 The Christians also disputed the Jews inappropriate rev-
erence for Gods own heavenly retinue of angels or for other agents
of God such as the revered patriarchs (e.g., Moses) or messiahs.78
Unlike some Jews, the Christians did not recognize other beings in
corporate worship to God.
Christs followers made the radical claim that Jesus must be wor-
shipped because he was Messiahthe mediator of cosmic redemp-
tion.79 This is truly remarkable, in Hurtados view, given that the
Jesus messianic titles and the worship given to him occurred only
after he was crucified in a Greco-Roman cultural and religious milieu.
Crucifixion had a lowly reputation. From ancient letter of Pliny the
Younger, we learn that the Christians would rather die than wor-
ship and bow down to any of the multitude of gods in the Roman
pantheon, or to an image of the emperor himself.80 Not to be
overlooked, the social and political costs involved make it remark-
able that the young faith proved as attractive as it obviously was for
some. . .81 Something powerfully attractive must have resonated with
outsiders, making early Christianity attractive, enough to the point

74
Ibid., 619. Cf. 619624.
75
Hurtado, At the Origins of Christian Worship, pp. 2326, 46.
76
Ibid., 25.
77
Ibid., 46.
78
Ibid., 29, 30.
79
Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?, pp. 4, 5.
80
Ibid., 13.
81
Ibid., 57.

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Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection 17

where thousands were willing to suffer the negative consequences

and sometimes die for the cause of Jesus.82
Another important aspect is that the earliest Christian tradition
of worship can be traced back to within days or weeks after his
execution. This precludes the idea the idea that Christian practices
evolved for decades after Christ. This pattern of devotion originated
so early that in the Christian movement that evolutionary approaches
are simply not appropriate. . .. I contend that devotion to Jesus as
divine was such a novel and significant step, and appeared so early
as well, that it can only be accounted for as a response to the strong
conviction in early Christian circles that the one God of biblical
tradition willed that Jesus be so reverenced. Ancient Jewish scruples
about worship were such that we cannot take devotion to Jesus as
some sort of accidental development, or as indicative of a readiness
of early Christians to engage in liturgical experimentation.83 Early
devotion to Jesus cannot be attributed to pagan religious influences
on their Jewish-Christian thought, even to Jews who were living
in the Diaspora.84 The antiquity of the practices reaches too far
back in time. Christian worship had therefore developed into a well
established devotional pattern within the first few months or years of
Christianity.
Further, the earliest believers began to proclaim the Gospel in the
Temple in the city of Jerusalem. The city of Jerusalem was the key
initial venue for the proclamation of the christological claims about
Jesus.85 Jerusalem appears to have been the geographical base of
their religious life. They started to worship there deliberately and
very promptly. The obvious reasons have to do with the ancestral
significance of Jerusalem as the royal and temple city, the traditional
Jewish site of king, worship, and pilgrimage.86 It was also the place
where Jesus appeared to his disciples after his crucifixion.
The clear and programmatic inclusion of Jesus in devotional life
was easily identifiable to outsiders.87 Pauls letters reflect an al-
ready well developed pattern of devotion to Jesus, key features of
which likely even predate Pauls own conversion and probably helped
to provoke his own prior efforts to stamp out the Jewish Chris-
tian movement.88 The similarity and structure in devotion extended
down to the second century, and this is even seen in the devotion in

82
Ibid., 5682.
83
Ibid., 29, 30.
84
Ibid., 3842.
85
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, p. 195.
86
Ibid., 196.
87
Ibid., 4.
88
Ibid., 24. Cf. 40, 110, 111, 215, 216.

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18 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection

heretical groups.89 Despite the varied minor expressions of devotion,

the churchs intense charismatic experiences of God in their worship
grew, attracting unbelievers at an alarmingly rapid pace.90 The four-
fold collection of the Gospels exemplifies what was so characteristic
in early Christian devotion in the second half of the first century: a
certain readiness to find unity of what they deemed essentials beneath
obvious diversity.91

III. Early Christian Worship as Evidence for Jesus Resurrection

By introducing the multifaceted nature of early devotion and litur-

gical worship, apologists now might recognize that more evidence
can be adduced in support of Jesus resurrection. The evidence can
be more qualitatively presented instead of merely defending the his-
toricity of the appearances, the empty tomb, and the cognitive beliefs
of the first disciples. Furthermore, the evidence of early worship
is consistent with the picture already given by Wright, OCollins,
Craig, Habermas, and Swinburne. Early Christian worship fills in the
postulate that maintains that the church itself has evidential status.92
Another reason to embrace the viewpoint of this essay is that op-
ponents of Easter Faith have not typically focused on worship as
evidence either.93
Perhaps apologists will resist the conclusions of this essay because
the kaleidoscopic picture presented here is entirely too difficult to
classify and use in any profitable way. Different strains and expres-
sions of Christian worship appeared at different times and places in
the church, and so it is entirely too difficult to neatly categorize which
components can be traced back to the earliest days of Christianity.
This objection does not undercut the primary thesis of this essay.
For one thing, historical Jesus researchers are beginning to draw
conclusions about Jesus from the standpoint of the earliest church.
As Terrence Tilley observes, a new research program is emerging,
one that shifts the focus from the quests for the historical Jesus,
a person in the past, to recovering the historic Jesus, the person
remembered by his followers. It finds that Jesus historic significance
is and should be the center of Jesus research.94 Work on Jesus is
89
Ibid., 558. Cf. 519561.
90
Ibid., 134153.
91
Ibid., 584.
92
C.F.D. Moule, The Phenomenon of the New Testament, (SCM Press, 1967).
93
For a representative summary, see Michael Martin, Skeptical Perspectives on Jesus
Resurrection, in Delbert Bukett, (ed), The Blackwell Companion to Jesus (New York:
Blackwell, 2011), 285299.
94
Terrence Tilley, Remembering the Historic JesusA New Research Program?,
Theological Studies, 68.1 (March 2007), p. 3.


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Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection 19

shifting from a study of Jesus life to the impact he made upon

his disciples. Overall, says Tilley, the new program shifts from
constructing theories about the Historical-Jesus to understanding the
practices in which Jesus was remembered.95
Thus the impact Jesus made upon later generations may count as
evidence for the resurrection. One way to think of how this is possible
is to recognize that personal identity cannot be isolated from social
identity. In order to know who a person is (and what they were like
and what they actually did), we should not only ask them questions,
we should also ask other individuals who knew something about
them. These other individuals might catch valuable insights about the
person that they themselves did not know.96 The interconnectedness
of reality and the human race ensures that the teachings and deeds
of someone from the past can be known with keener insights than
the person knew about themselves. Extended to the case of the early
church and Jesus resurrection, a reliable testimony can therefore be
provided by later generations of people who may have witnessed an
appearance of the Risen Christ.
Consequently, the evidence of worship that skeptics discount as too
far removed from the resurrection of Jesus might be seen a privileged
form of evidence. Later believers may have more well-rounded evi-
dence from various perspectives at their disposal to determine what
should be included in the most up-to-date expressions of devotion.
Thus historians do not need earlier sources to ensure that the case
for Jesus resurrection is more trustworthy. Sometimes events of great
importance require a considerable span of time to traverse for it to
be rightly comprehended and even argued for. Therefore later expres-
sions of early Christian worship should not always be given second
priority. Nonetheless, some expressions of Christian worship did not
begin decades after Jesus death and burial. Many expressions began
almost immediately after the appearances. Liturgical worship, more-
over, remained tied to the same basic practices in the face of Jewish
and pagan religious pressure to the contrary. Outside of the appear-
ances, empty tomb, and disciples cognitive beliefs, some of these
features can be listed.
A strong case can be made for the early origins of the Eucharist
and Christian Baptism. The paradigmatic shift from the Jewish rit-
ual meals to the Christian Eucharist had to do with the change of
meaning that the earliest believers poured into their new ritual meal.
Celebrating the Eucharist was seen as the culminating expression
of the new covenant. Also significant is Christian baptism (and the
new meanings poured into these practices by Christians), and the

95
Ibid., 5.
96
Dale C. Allison, The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus, (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 2229.

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20 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection

liturgical prayers and hymns directed to Jesus (a strong indication

that the first believers saw Jesus as divine). Romans 6:16 and Colos-
sians 2:12 demonstrate that the meaning of baptism was intimately
linked to Jesus death and resurrection. The change in meaning by
the church points to the resurrection as a necessary precondition for
such a change.
The origins of celebrating the Sabbath on Sunday instead of
Saturday is equally noteworthy.97 One of the earliest customs was
the meetings the earliest believers held on every Sunday (Matt. 28:1;
Mark 16:2,9; John 20:1,19; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2; Rev 1:10). De-
spite the variation of the liturgical celebration, the basics of meeting
on Sunday were generally agreed upon. Since Sunday was the day
in which the disciples found the tomb empty (and possibly saw what
they believed was the Risen Jesus), Sunday was viewed as a sacred
day by the earliest communities.
Worshipping Christ and God together would count as another ma-
jor significant modification. Similarly, singing hymns and praying
to Jesus is a significant feature in earliest Christianity. The use of
prophetic speech within their gathered assemblies is equally tanta-
lizing. The fact of Christian martyrdom should also be considered.
Unlike the religious martyrs of today, the earliest believers were in a
position to know if what they practiced was mistaken. The Christians
refusal to accommodate the substance of their worship practices in the
face of alternative religious pressure, and the rapid rise and success
of worshipping a crucified Messiah in the face of secular opposition
to their practices should be exploited for apologetic purposes as well.
Further, many pagan terms were given a new, Christianized mean-
ing to show outsiders the importance of their own meetings and
beliefs. Unlike Judaism, all people, regardless of race, gender, reli-
gion or cultural background, were called to believe in Messiah Jesus.
Unlike the potpourri of Greco-Roman religions, the worship of Christ
was constituted by an exclusive form of worship. All other deities had
to be renounced by new converts. All of these devotional practices
cry out for explanation (or, explanations), and they can all be traced
back to an early date, soon after Jesus was crucified and buried.
Now some detractors might note that historical explanations are
usually accounted for by many causes, not just one causal theory.
Now, it is true that the phenomena of early worship can be said to
have more than one cause for its existence, but this would not mean
historians cannot posit Jesus resurrection as the ultimate cause that
set off a chain reaction of additional causal conditions that brought
these practices into mature expressions at a later time (say, infusing

97
Richard Bauckham, The Lords Day, in D.A. Carson, (ed), From Sabbath to Lords
Day: A Biblical, Historical, and Theological Investigation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
1982), pp. 236240.

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Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection 21

the Greek word ecclesia with a new meaning for the purposes of
evangelical belief and practice). Sometimes religious experiences in
corporate worship settings provide an impetus to sustain the move-
ment and keep it going.98 Various causes have different values and
contribute to forming the phenomena of Christian worship. True, his-
torians rarely affirm that entire movements can be accounted for by
a single cause. Many conditions surrounding the primary event under
consideration (that is, Jesus resurrection), however, might contribute
to its ongoing influence and vitality.
But sometimes a single event (Jesus resurrection) can have trace-
able ripples effects that are manifested in the future in different times
and places (and sometimes in the distant future in different geograph-
ical regions that were not immediately affiliated with either Judaism
or Christianity). Each piece of evidence does not have to bear the full
weight of the case. Each piece is presented by Hurtado and his col-
leagues to create a cumulative case argument. While an accumulated
amount of evidence, while unable to be persuasive if one takes one
piece at a time, becomes much more compelling when qualitatively
combined together. What makes early Christian worship such an im-
portant resource for apologetics is that there is nothing miraculous
about the practices (unlike Jesus resurrection, which is a historical
miracle).
Perhaps the most important factor to consider when analyzing the
origins of Christian worship is to pinpoint the cause (or causes) of
what brought these practices into being. For the real challenge in his-
torical understanding is to discover not only what happened, but also
why (and how) the event occurred as well. For all of the historical
mutations that have been discussed are hugely significant and beg
for some sort of explanation. There are a few causes that are able
to account for them. The first would be pagan religious influences.
Mentioned earlier by Hurtado and Bauckham, pagan influences may
be responsible for providing the Christians with the conceptual cat-
egories needed for articulating their beliefs and practices, but this is
far from affirming that the content of worship is completely pagan.
Both in theology and in practice, Hurtado responds, Greco-Roman
Jews demonstrate concern for Gods supremacy and uniqueness with
an intensity and a solidarity that seem to go far beyond anything
else previously known in the Greco-Roman world.99 Moreover, the
earliest traditions can be traced back to within weeks or months
after Jesus execution. Thus the antiquity and the general consis-
tency of Christian worship practices, starting from Jerusalem outward,

98
Luke Timothy Johnson, Religious Experience in Earliest Christianity: A Missing
Dimension in New Testament Study, (Minneapolis, MJN: Fortress, 1998).
99
Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?, p. 130.

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22 Early Christian Worship and the Historical Argument for Jesus Resurrection

precludes the skeptics allegation that worship originated under the

influence of pagan mystery religions.
The other causal theory stems directly from Jewish worship. The
biggest distinction in earliest Christianity was its insistence on wor-
shipping a person. Although Judaism can account for the background
of earliest worship, it cannot account for the earliest expressions of
Christian worship as an explanation. Worship of Jesus of Nazareth
was not in competition of the worship given to God: rather, Jesus was
seen as divine, or, at the very least, as participating in the divine na-
ture. Judaism, moreover, forbade the apotheosis or the divinization of
human persons. The Christian innovations would have compromised
Judaisms strictly monotheistic stance.
In contrast to these two causal theories, the best explanation of
the evidence resonates with the explanation offered by the church
itself: the disciples experienced what they at least thought were
appearances of Jesus risen from the dead. These appearances occurred
at different times and places, and to individuals and even groups of
people. Sometimes they even occurred to enemies of Christ (Paul,
James, etc.), those who did not have faith in Jesus during his earthly
ministry. Though more causal theories are needed to account more
fully for the phenomenon of early Christian worship, this explanation
is the one that is relevant to the apologetic enterprise.

IV. Conclusion

Apologists such as N.T. Wright, Gerald OCollins, Richard

Swinburne, William Lane Craig, and Gary Habermas have appealed
to the post-mortem appearances, the empty tomb, and the origin of
the disciples belief in the resurrection to lend credibility to Jesus
resurrection. The earliest and most pertinent evidence concerning the
earliest churchs worship and devotional life has not been used to
defend the resurrection (or to defend the historicity of the evidence
itself).
On the other hand, scholars of early worship such as Richard
Bauckham, Larry Hurtado, and James Dunn have not seen their work
as having apologetic import. This essay has sought to bridge the gap
between these research paradigms in earliest Christianity and show
that they can only complement each other for the better, especially for
the sake of apologetic purposes. By no means would the apologists
arguments be nullified by the facts involved with early Christian
worship.
I have shown that early Christian worship can only buttress the
apologists arguments. The churchs beliefs coincided with her prac-
tices, and her practices were expressed by what she cognitively be-
lieved (Lex orandi, Lex credendi). Apologists can profit from using

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the evidence of Christian worship, and it heavily qualifies their con-

tention that the churchs beliefs in the resurrection have significant
evidential import.

Glenn Siniscalchi
16 Venus Way Sewell, NJ 08080
United States
gbsiniscalchi@yahoo.com


C 2011 The Author

New Blackfriars 
C 2011 The Dominican Council