Larry Weir Hurtado, (December 29, 1943 – November 25, 2019), was an American

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researc ...

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

early Christianity Early Christianity (up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325) spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and beyond. Originally, this progression was closely connected to already established Jewish centers in the Holy Land and the Jewis ...

, and Emeritus Professor of New Testament Language, Literature, and Theology at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

(1996–2011). He was the head of the School of Divinity from 2007 to 2010, and was until August 2011 Director of the Centre for the Study of Christian Origins at the University of Edinburgh.

Biography

Born in Kansas City,

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

, on December 29, 1943, Hurtado was educated at

Central Bible College Central Bible College (CBC) was a private"Central Bible College"

and

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) is an academic divinity school founded in 1897 and located in the northern Chicago suburb of Deerfield, Illinois. It is part of and located on the main campus of Trinity International University. It� ...

. He completed his Ph.D. in 1973 at Case Western Reserve University under the supervision of Eldon Jay Epp with the dissertation ''Codex Washingtonianus in the Gospel of Mark: Its Textual Relationships and Scribal Characteristics''. His first academic appointment was at

Regent College Regent College is an interdenominational evangelical Christian College of Christian studies, and an affiliated college of the University of British Columbia, located next to the university's campus in the University Endowment Lands west of V ...

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, where he taught from 1975 to 1978. Prior to moving to Canada in 1975 he pastored a church in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

's most Jewish suburb, Skokie,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

. Thereafter he moved to the Department of Religion at the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba.Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749, ...

, where he was promoted to full Professor in 1988 and taught until 1996. During his time there, he established the University of Manitoba Institute for the Humanities and served as initial Director from 1990 to 1992. Shortly after his appointment at the

, he established the Centre for the Study of Christian Origins, which focuses on Christianity in the first three centuries. He made significant advances in understanding Jewish monotheism and early Christian devotion to

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

. He was an authority on the Gospels (especially the Gospel of Mark), the Apostle Paul, early

Christology In Christianity, Christology (from the Greek grc, Χριστός, Khristós, label=none and grc, -λογία, -logia, label=none), translated literally from Greek as "the study of Christ", is a branch of theology that concerns Jesus. Differ ...

, the Jewish background of the New Testament, and

textual criticism Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in da ...

of the New Testament. He was perhaps most well known for his studies on the early emergence of a devotion to Jesus expressed in beliefs about Jesus sharing God's glory, and in a "devotional pattern" in which Jesus features prominently. Hurtado argued that this Jesus-devotion comprises a novel "mutation" in ancient Jewish monotheistic practice. In his later publications, he also urged greater awareness of the historical value of earliest Christian manuscripts as key physical artefacts of early Christianity, drawing attention to such phenomena as the ''

nomina sacra In Christian scribal practice, nomina sacra (singular: ''nomen sacrum'' from Latin ''sacred name'') is the abbreviation of several frequently occurring divine names or titles, especially in Greek manuscripts of the Bible. A nomen sacrum consists ...

'' (distinctive abbreviated forms of certain Greek words, e.g., ''Theos, Iesous, Kyrios, Christos''), the Christian preference for the codex book form, and a number of other features. He was elected a member of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas in 1984, and received the Rh Institute Award for Outstanding Contributions to Scholarship and Research in the Humanities in 1986. He was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This socie ...

in 2008, and President of the British New Testament Society from 2009 to 2012. He won research grants from the

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC; french: Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada, CRSH) is a Canadian federal research-funding agency that promotes and supports post-secondary research and traini ...

, the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars spa ...

, and the

Arts and Humanities Research Council The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), formerly Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), is a British research council, established in 1998, supporting research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities. History The Arts ...

(UK). He gave invited lectures in many universities in the UK and other countries, and was a visiting fellow at Macquarie University in Australia in 2005. The School of Divinity announced that Hurtado had died of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

in his sleep on November 25, 2019. Holly J. Carey (

Point University Point University is a private evangelical Christian university in West Point, Georgia. It was founded in 1937 as Atlanta Christian College in East Point. The college announced its name change to Point University in 2011 and relocated its main ...

) wrote an obituary in his honour on '' Christianity Today''.

Works

Books

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As editor

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Articles and chapters

* * * *

References

External links

*
Larry Hurtado's page at The University of Edinburgh

from a discussion called Jesus and the Gospel—What Really Happened?
That Curious Idea of Resurrection

The Gospel of Judas: The text, the scholarship, and the scandal

Ungodly Errors: Scholarly gripes about The Da Vinci Code's Jesus

''Society of Biblical Literature 1993 Seminar Papers'', ed. E. H. Lovering (Scholars Press, 1993), pp. 348–68 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hurtado, Larry 1943 births 2019 deaths 20th-century Christian biblical scholars 21st-century Christian biblical scholars 20th-century Christian theologians 21st-century Christian theologians Academics from Missouri Academics of the University of Edinburgh American biblical scholars American Christian theologians Case Western Reserve University alumni Central Bible College alumni Deaths from cancer in Scotland Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh New Testament scholars Trinity Evangelical Divinity School alumni University of Manitoba faculty Writers from Kansas City, Missouri